Gardening and bird-watching go hand in hand, and bird feeders, birdbaths and birdhouses give you a chance to add sculptural elements to your yard and help the birds, too.
As you learn to recognize more and more birds in your backyard, you’ll also develop a deeper appreciation for your garden as a natural habitat.
“That’s part of the joy of the experience noticing the details,” says Jonathan Alderfer, chief consultant for National Geographic’s birding program and co-author of the new “Birding Essentials.”
“If you’re actively looking for birds, you see everything more clearly,” Alderfer says. He has been watching birds for about 30 years, and he never grows tired of it.
The winter months are a great time to study backyard birds and to get to know your resident bird population. A well-placed bird feeder is all you need to get started, but once you have experienced the pleasure of watching a little wren hop from the fence to the suet feeder and back, or after a family of bright red cardinals stop by for a lunch of sunflower seeds, you may want more than a single feeder. Different kinds of feeders will also attract a greater variety of birds.
Garden shops have expanded their selections of bird-friendly garden decorations in the past few years, as have mail-order garden specialists.
“We added this category about 10 years ago, and it’s grown every year,” says Cindy Goodenow at Gardener’s Supply Co. (gardeners.com). Customers are looking for bird feeders and accessories that are both functional and decorative, Goodenow says. Feeders that look like cattails and corncobs are big sellers.
“Customers like color,” she says, “and they like the rustic look, too.” Goodenow says the company was surprised by the response when it offered colorful birdhouses in three summery hues for $30 each, with a special price of $79 for all three.
“People are going for all three,” she says. “They’re outselling the individual houses.”
Goodenow has five bird feeders and a birdbath in her backyard in Vermont.
“For me it’s just a natural thing,” she says. “Gardeners are in tune with nature, and the birds are part of that.”
Like European houses and refrigerators, European bird feeders tend to be smaller than American models, Goodenow says. In Europe, small feeders are replenished frequently. Americans like big hopper or tube feeders that hold a lot of seed or suet.
Alderfer lives in Washington, D.C., and watches birds from the window of his studio, where he paints and sketches birds. His garden is planted with hollies, pine trees, flowering shrubs and perennial plants that produce berries or seeds that attract birds.
“Every year I mow a little less and let the plants creep in farther,” he says. “Every year, I have less lawn and more wild areas.”
As an artist, Alderfer appreciates the visual appeal of a lawn, but as a bird-watcher, he knows that lawn has little appeal.
“I’m paying more attention to habitat,” he says. Asters, coneflowers and beebalm, which all attract butterflies, also are great bird plants. Finches and chickadees eat the seeds of asters and coneflowers, and hummingbirds will visit beebalm all summer long.
Alderfer has a plain, flat platform feeder for black-oil sunflower seed, a tube feeder for niger seed (also called nyjer or thistle) and a suet feeder. From spring until late in the fall, he also feeds hummingbirds.
Squirrels, sparrows, starlings and mourning doves all take their share of birdseed in the winter, and that’s all right with Alderfer. His favorite birds are the woodpeckers, but watching common birds like sparrows develops your observation skills.
“If you concentrate on the common birds first, then you’ll know when you’re seeing something different,” Alderfer says.
Birdhouses (the experts call them nesting boxes) will let you observe the nesting habits of many birds. Alderfer has nesting boxes for wrens and chickadees in his garden. When a branch dies in one of his trees, he leaves it there (unless it is a menace) for the woodpeckers, titmice and other cavity-nesting birds.
This winter he put up a new nesting box for screech owls. Nesting sites for these little owls can be scarce in the big city, but they willingly move into an appropriately placed box.
“I’d love to have a family of screech owls as neighbors,” Alderfer says. “They’re up all night, but they mind their own business.”
Bring on the birds
Jonathan Alderfer is co-author of the new “National Geographic Birding Essentials” (nationalgeographic.com, $16) and of National Geographic’s “Field Guide to the Birds of North America” ($24). He is also the editor of National Geographic’s “Complete Birds of North America” ($35). He keeps a list of the birds that visit his backyard in Washington, D.C., and about 140 species have visited his garden so far. Here are some of his ideas and suggestions for gardeners and bird-watchers at every level.
Place feeders where you can see them from the windows. “You can get great looks even without binoculars,” Alderfer says. If you don’t have a feeder, just sprinkle seed on the ground or on a patio.
When you want to look closer and learn more, it’s time for a pair of binoculars and a field guide. “Birding Essentials” offers advice on choosing binoculars, or you can search the Internet for “Cornell” and “binoculars” for an article from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (birds.cornell.edu) on birding binoculars of all kinds.
Garden for the birds. Plant native plants because that’s what the birds are adapted to, and remember to include evergreens for shelter from wind and weather during the winter.
Water attracts birds. A heated birdbath will bring birds to your yard even in the dead of winter. In spring and summer, a dripper attachment or a battery-operated “water wiggler” (sold at bird specialty shops) will make your birdbath more visible to birds.
Alderfer suggests making a pinhole in the bottom of a one-gallon milk jug, filling it with water and hanging it from a shepherd’s-crook pole (available at garden shops) or a branch above a birdbath. “It will drip for hours,” he says. “It attracts birds that don’t come to water that often, like vireos and warblers and thrushes.”
Don’t forget the hummingbirds. A hummingbird feeder will bring these tiny birds right up to your window. “You get quite a show,” Alderfer says, “and kids love them.”
Take it all in. “Birding isn’t just about identifying birds,” Alderfer says. “It’s about the natural world that you live in in your own backyard, in your county, in your state. As you become educated about the natural world, conservation becomes important. Get involved.”
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