Happy New Year! Start 2013 by resolving to improve your backyard birding with one or more of these tips:
1. Add one new type of feeder - One great way to increase bird diversity in your backyard is to increase the variety of food types you offer, and the way you offer them. Some ground feeding birds won’t visit a hanging seed feeder. Others prefer fruit or insects. Add one of the following to your yard in 2013:
- Suet feeder (woodpeckers especially love these)
- Platform feeder (good for birds like cardinals that prefer ground feeding)
- Fruit feeder (for birds like orioles, tanagers, and grosbeaks – get a complete list here)
- Sugar water feeder (hummingbirds, orioles, and even butterflies)
- Mealworm feeder (this is the best way to bring bluebirds to your yard)
2. Plant for birds - Birds do not live by feeders alone. Many birds prefer to eat seeds and berries straight from the source. Plant sunflowers, thistle, millet, and coneflowers to thrill seed-eating finches. Berry lovers like Cedar Waxwings are almost never seen at feeders, but will flock to a yard with berry bushes in the winter. Hummingbirds like sugar water feeders, but will also happily visit hosta flowers and honeysuckle. Learn more about great plants for birds at the Birds & Blooms website.
3. Provide shelter and nesting opportunities – The best backyard birding I’ve experienced comes when the yard includes nice tall trees and plenty of sheltering bushes. If you can, plant a tree or two in 2013 – pines work well almost everywhere and grow quickly. If trees just aren’t a possibility, provide shelter and nesting opportunities with nesting boxes (check out these DIY plans from Birds & Blooms) and nesting material (get ideas here). Quick tip – many people have been reporting success with special “hummingbird perches” like this one, where territorial hummingbirds can sit and watch over their food sources. These provide neat photo opportunities of hummingbirds at rest.
4. Learn to recognize songs – For every bird you see, there are certainly many others close by too shy to make themselves known. Learn to recognize their songs and then grab your binoculars to seek them out in the trees nearby. Try this article, How to Learn Bird Songs from BirdJam, to get started.
5. Keep a bird journal - Take your armchair birding a step further by jotting notes and sketches in a book you keep handy at all times. Even if you’re not much of an artist, you can sketch the outline or a bill or tail, or make notes on the coloration you see. Add memos about the behavior, the interaction with other birds, and what time of day you make your sightings. Every few months, you can review your findings and refine the feeder offerings in your yard based on what seems to be most successful. Not sure how to get started with a bird journal? Try this great detailed article for tips and ideas.
What resolutions do you suggest for better backyard bird watching? Share your ideas in the comments section below!
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Jill- Greatly appreciate the post for finding ‘fruit feeding’ birds. A very helpful source for the type of bird and fruits that
attract them. Some of them listed, I didn’t know about here in the East! Thank-You!!
Love this! My only suggestion would be to also use as many native plants as possible. My birding area is shady, so I’m going to try a native woodland sunflower, among other natives, to see if it’ll survive there.
ryp: I added a suet feeder last year, and that’s when I first started seeing the downy woodpecker (or maybe a hairy woodpecker, we still haven’t figured out which). Last week, I added a squirrel-proof (hopefully!) platform feeder and did see some cardinals. Lots of seed spilled, so it was a popular place. Which I guess was the best advertisement of all, because I then saw a giant woodpecker with a red head on the suet. He came back for a second helping, so I hope we’ll see more of him.
I love seeing the woodpeckers in my yard. I have a problem with most suet feeders though. The square ones that look like little cages allow all of the starlings to eat all the suet. They scare the woodpeckers away! The squirrels like it too! Any suggestions on how to limit the starling’s access?
Thank you.
Use the upside-down suet feeders. The starlings can still hang on it, but not easily, so they kind of ‘fall off’ – especially if you see them and clap your hands and make noise.
We attach metal Slinkys over the poles of the crooks our feeders hang from using wire ties to attach them just above the ground if they’re too long and to about the middle of the top curve. Squirrels hate them. They’ll jump on, slide down, and jump off. They stare at them but can’t seem to figour out how to get around them. As for the starlings, good luck. We don’t have too much trouble with them maybe because we feed a lot of ways that are easier for them than the suet feeder and our double-cake feeder’s more slanted so it’s harder for them to cling to.
I’d like more bluebirds. What does a mealworm feeder look like? Do I feed dried or fresh ones? Do I grow my own?
Feeding birds has been lot of fun this winter. To attract birds I have been consistent in what I provide and they know they can count on me keeping the feeders full. Sometimes this is a challenge in that the deer think it is for them as well. A rundown 0f the birds I see at my feeders: 23 finches, 2 downy woodpeckers, 2 hairy woodpeckers, 2 red breasted woodpeckers, 1 pileated woodpecker, 3 blue jays, 3 robins, 8 cardinals(4 female & 4 male), juncos, nuthatches, and white-capped chickadees. Not to mention squirrels(gray, red, black, white), 5 bucks & 7 does that try to get to the seed. Oh yes, there is a red fox as well. What I have for feeders are: platform feeder, 2 square wire suet feeders, a homemade beef suet feeder, a feeder for safflower seed, a feeder for black oiler sunflower seeds, a hanging feeder for thistle seed, and a feeder for the cheap bird mix. I also have a heated birdbath. This combination has worked well for me. Having a woods nearby helps bring the birds to stay for the winter.
Hello, I finally bought some thistle feed , I cannot believe the amount of Finches I have had the pleasure to come to visit. I have always fed birds . But now i have an added little sweeties to enjoy. I live in Northern Ca.. Does anyone have other ideas to attract birds? I live in Lake County
Marilyn
I like your information online, I just wish you could do a section for the Canadian readers, I live in SW ON and with out diffence in temp alot of your post do not help us…thanks in advance
I would love to find a way to keep the red squirrels and chipmunks from eating the grape jelly I put out for the orioles and catbirds. Any suggestions?
We hang our grape jelly feeder for the Orioles in our yard on a tall shepherd’s hook. If I see a chipmonk running up the pole I grease it with Crisco etc. and then watch them slip and slide until they give up.
We use to have many different species of birds at our feeders but this year it seem to be hundreds of sparrows. They come in very large group and just seem to take over. Is there anyway of getting less sparrows and more of other birds? Thank you for any help you can give me.
I enjooy reading all the stories people write about there bird encounters and the new birds that they attract. I just wish there was a way to see where everyone is located. Would make it easier to know wich birds are in my area.
I live in Northern Indiana. I have a double shepherds hook with a bag of thistle seed and a supposedly squirrel proof cylinder wire feeder with sunflower seeds. (I have pictures from last winter of squirrels hanging from the bottom of it while eating the seeds.) 2 platform feeders with mixed bird seed and a square suet feeder. In the summer I put a hummingbird feeder out. I have cardinals, blue jays, nuthatches, sparrows, morning doves, finches, a downy woodpecker, a hairy woodpecker and a red belly woodpecker. Last summer for the first time I saw two male indigo buntings, They were only here for a couple of days, and then I did not see them again. I too have trouble with what we call starlings, but my bird book calls them grackles eating my suet in the summer. I mainly just scare them away every chance I get. I haven’t seen any of the slanted suet feeders that others have talked about.
I live in Calgary Alberta. I’m not sure what kind of birds I can attract besides Redpoll, robins, finch and chickadees, also I would like to know what to feed any new comers.