Native plants that attract backyard birds
Zach Salvin (2017, Feb 10), highlights the fact that, “birds and native plants are made for each other,” and thus the native plants are the best bird feeders. Birds carry seeds and spread them throughout their habitats, extending and maintaining the ecosystem. In addition, native plants provide food for nesting birds by harboring hundreds of thousands of native insects. Thus, birds live their entire life cycle within rich and diverse plant communities. As a result, planting the right native plants in your backyard can attract the sweetest birds you’d like to invite into your gardens every day.
Blackberry thickets and wild grasses can attract sparrow species, which Salvin claims flourish particularly in thickets and tall grass, while willows, sagebrush, and other dense or shrub-like native plants can offer them food and nesting sites.
Cardinals, Grosbeaks, and Tanagers will flock to your garden if you plant sunflowers, elderberries, and serviceberries. In the spring, birds are drawn to these elderberry flowers as they attract insects.
Oaks and beeches attract crows and jays, as well as other wild animals throughout the year. Oaks harbor caterpillars and over 530 species of moths and butterflies that become food for nestling birds in the spring and draw a wide range of migrating birds.
Pine, hickory, oak, and cherry trees are favorites of woodpeckers because they are home to a variety of edible insects. The cavities woodpeckers make in the larger tree trunks to nest become shelter for many other bird species during the winter. Birches and sumacs attract Chickadee and Titmice species who eat caterpillars for the most part. Birches are popular among birds to drill cavities to nest.
Colorful and tiny finches can be attracted to your garden by growing colorful flowers such as daisies, sunflowers, thistles, and asters that produce small seeds, as well as spruces, hemlocks, and pine trees that are important food sources for finches.
Thus, native plants in your back yards can create live bird paradise with gorgeous colors and chirps.
Reference:
Salvin, Z. (2017, Feb 10). Grow These Native Plants So Your Backyard Birds Can Feast. Audubon. https://www.audubon.org/news/grow-these-native-plants-so-your-backyard-birds-can-feast
Donahue, M. (2017, July 27). New Research Further Proves Native Plants Offer More Bugs for Birds. Audubon. https://www.audubon.org/news/new-research-further-proves-native-plants-offer-more-bugs-birds
6 reasons why planting a native tree benefits the environment and our local ecosystem. (n,d). Leaf & limb. https://www.leaflimb.com/6-reasons-why-planting-native-trees-benefits-the-environment-and-our-local-ecosystem/
Bird-Friendly Communities: Why Native Plants Matter. (n,d). Audubon. https://www.audubon.org/content/why-native-plants-matter.
