Birding

We love to travel to find new birds and participate in a lot of bird counts. We also created a Guide to Birding Field Guides and host a collection of over 300 birding links from all over the globe.

Conservation

While our main focus continues to be birds, we promote other areas of conservation as well. Conserving land not only benefits wildlife, but is hugely beneficial to people as well.

Outdoors

We love all sorts of outdoor activities, especially hiking and spend a lot of time outside with dogs and horses. We are working to produce more articles on all sorts of outdoor fun!

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Article in: Birding

Landscape For Birds

#6 of 31 Days to Better Birding and Conservation

Coneflowers, free bird seed!
Coneflowers

Landscaping for birds, or birdscaping, is not a new concept but one that is extremely important for birds. By purposefully planting native trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers, we provide food and shelter for nesting and migrating birds. Add a pond, bird bath, or any type of moving water and you have a triple play of bird attracting and support.

Cape May Warbler, attracted to our homemade watering feature and wooded cover
Cape May Warbler

Another important concept is to have less grass! Monotone grass provides nearly no value to all but a few bird species and is wasteful – watering, mowing, and fertilizing, not to mention all the wasted time. (Some grass is OK, as we need space for our energetic dogs).

The beauty of landscaping for birds is it is fun and it doesn’t matter how large or small your backyard is. Every bit helps!

We live in a city of 150,000+ people and have attracted 95 species of birds to our 1/4 acre backyard. We don’t border any parks or preserves.

5 Comments or Trackbacks   ↓ Jump to add comment ↓

  1. Larry says:

    You’ve got to be kidding! That’s an incredible yard list. I don’t care what I plant,I’d never get that many birds.-But I guess that I could always improve.

    Posted on: October 6, 2007 @ 2:33 pm

  2. Mike Barlow says:

    I am a novice birder and have been really enjoying this blog, especially the 31 days to better birding series. I found this link at NWF for wildlife landscaping where you can look up native food sources by state:

    http://www.nwf.org/backyard/food.cfm

    Posted on: October 6, 2007 @ 8:09 pm

  3. The Birdfreak Team says:

    Larry – We never thought we could see so many great birds in such a suburban area either! Every year it seems to get a little better though.

    Mike – We are so glad you like our blog and thanks for the info on that site!

    Posted on: October 6, 2007 @ 9:28 pm

Trackbacks

  1. Birdscaping: Backyard Landscaping to Attract Wildlife - The Barlow Blog
  2. www.bestlandscapingadvice.info » Landscape For Birds

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