Bird-friendly yards
CREATE A GARDEN THAT GIVES YOUR FAVORITE FLIERS PLENTY OF NATURAL PLACES TO HIDE.
Beyond the flurry of activity at the backyard feeder, there’s a never-ending performance happening throughout your bird-friendly garden. It’s the way birds position themselves within your space when they’re not at the feeder, rapidly moving from limb to branch, ground to tree, and back again. These behaviors, a way to ensure survival, offer hours of fascinating observation.
A bird’s sole life purpose is to produce offspring, so all of its movements are driven by natural instincts to find food, water, shelter, protection and safe nesting sites. Backyard habitats offering a variety and quantity of shrubbery, trees and structures provide those life essentials.
Rhiannon Crain, project leader of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Habitat Network ( yardmap.org), says birds are attracted to “three different layers of habitat: overstory, midstory and understory.” Birds have “evolved to be in those locations in the yard,” Rhiannon says. “When developing a bird-friendly backyard habitat, many only think in a one-dimensional way—looking down at a landscape plan. Often they don’t think about critical areas for birds.”
An array of trees and shrubs in different sizes and shapes makes it easier and more energy-efficient for birds because they can quickly and casually hide among branches or fade into shadows in the foliage when a threat is near. “Birds like different levels of vegetation to accommodate their niches,” Rhiannon says.
Some birds may know even more details about your backyard than you do, such as the best hiding places and shelters, and the known dangers lurking there.
In his book, What the Robin Knows, author Jon observes that a bird’s movement within a landscape is based on energy-saving tactics. Most fliers know a recognized predator’s reach, and in order to conserve valuable energy, they retreat to what Jon refers to as their “just far enough” distance for safety.
Birds tend to “move through the landscape only as far as necessary when recognizing a specific threat, reacting as necessary,” Jon writes. “Ground birds that know a particular cat can jump only 4 feet off the ground will ascend to a branch 5 feet up—why go 20 feet up when 5 feet is sufficient?”
A variety of dense foliage from ground level to the upper tree canopy creates pathways and corridors to let birds travel safely throughout your yard. “Birds don’t like to cross open spaces,” Rhiannon says. “They will go 10 times as far so as not to cross an open area.”
Herb Lewis, an Alabama Master Gardener, lives within a flyway along the Tennessee River Valley and studies bird behavior in his lush and diverse yard, a Certified Wildlife Habitat. “To build density from the ground up into the trees and higher elevations, I would use flowering shrubbery,” Herb says. “In the spring and summer months, use a lot of annuals—they work really well on the ground level.”
All of this plant cover might seem beneficial to predators as well, but Herb says that overall it works in the bird’s favor. “The birds don’t come out long enough for a predator to attack them,” he says.
Landscapes that offer a wide variety of food sources—fruit, seeds and insects—at different times throughout the year make the most inviting and bird-friendly habitat. Expand the environment beyond your own backyard by coordinating your plantings and corridors with your neighbors.
“It’s important to build a garden for beauty, but also for bird conservation and habitat,” Herb says. Follow Herb’s lead and certify your backyard habitat with the National Wildlife Federation (nwf.org/certify).