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Home > Birds - Inviting Them Into Your Garden

Birds - Inviting Them Into Your Garden

We love birds. They are our constant companions out in the garden. Their songs keep us happy all day. We feel so honored that they choose to live in our gardens, our nursery and near our home.

As we have watched our birds, we've learned a great deal about their behavior and why they do what they do. We've watched them build nests in our shrubs and trees, in nestboxes and in our pasture. We've learned to recognize their warning calls when we get to close to their nests. We've watched them strip the fruit off of dogwoods and viburnums, and bring their babies up to our suet feeders.

We're also very protective of our birds. When the birds suddenly freeze in place at our feeders, we know a predator is nearby. We've learned that planting shrubs or trees near feedingstations offers a quick escape for birds from predators. Placing thorny branches in a circle around the spillzone under feeders deters cats from pouncing on our birds.

Watching birds has taught us alot about what they need to survive. Like us, they need the obvious: food, water, shelter and a place to raise their young. But how you provide the four essential things really determines how happy and successful your birds will be.

Just like us, they have certain preferences for food, where they want to build a nest and what they will tolerate as risks or intrusions on their lives. To offer birds a safe, comforting place to live, we need to provide them with the best habitat possible. Plants for birds helps us do that.

With the information we have on this site, we hope that you can learn all about what birds need so that they will want to live in your yard, too.

Learn More

On our Web site you can learn more about gardening for birds and order plants that will make your yard more friendly for birds.

• Gardening for Birds
• Plants for Birds
• Birds: Our Beautiful Garden Allies, a Spring Valley Roses In the Garden Magazine article

Here is a list of our favorite Web sites that offer a great deal of information about birds and opportunities for you to participate in bird-related activities.

• All About Birds. Find out more about birds North American birds at this site sponsored by Cornell University Lab of Ornithology.
• Project FeederWatch. Be a part of science and track the birds in your backyard. Sponsored by Cornell University and the National Audubon Society
• National Audubon Society
• National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program
• Keep Your Cat Indoors Campaign. Protect your birds and your cats. Learn more at this Web site.

Help Protect our Migratory Birds! Buy fair-trade certified coffee and help support the farmers that care for our migratory birds in the winter. Learn more at the following Web sites:

• Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
  
  
• Fair Trade Certified -- certified farms use bird-friendly practices, such as shade-grown coffee, to provide habitat for migratory songbirds.