HomeYour BlogsHow to encourage birds to your garden F&F member Rachel Stanley teaches F&F readers how to entice more birds into their gardens. Gardens are birds go hand in hand. Not only is it lovely to look out of the window and admire both colourful flowers and colourful birds, they can play an important part in the garden’s ecosystem, eating several pests. There is sometimes a perception amongst gardeners that to attract a variety of birds into a garden, you need to allow it to become a little wild. That’s not true. There are many ways you can have the joy of garden birds while still maintaining your garden’s look. Image by Luciano Giussani 1) Food and Water Like humans, birds are naturally attracted to places where they can have a drink and something to eat. A birdbath can help encourage them in, and can also be a great garden feature. If you don’t want to spend money on an expensive bath, improvise. Any kind of container up to 10 cm deep will do. Food should be left out all year-round. There are plenty of commercial food mixes which can be left out - just pay a visit to the local pet shop. You’ll need to get a feeder to put all the food in - they can be bought easily at low cost. Check out these bird feeders for inspiration. 2) Shelter If you want to get birds to nest, you should give them somewhere safe to do it in. Bird nesting boxes provide birds with a covered spot in which to build their nest, and they’ll probably return next year if they’ve raised their young there successfully this year. While they may nest anyway in trees, a nesting box should keep them and their chicks safe from predators like cats and foxes (provided you place them high enough up, of course. A tree trunk or wall are often the best locations) Like bird baths, nesting boxes can become a garden feature. 3) Plants Attracting birds is not just about giving them home comforts. Birds love plants, and certain kinds of plants go down better than others. Shrubby plants that will provide the birds with a place to explore and to hide when they need to. Holly is a good option, as they can also eat its berries. Try and keep your shrubberies mixed, as birds tend to like a variety of plants. Climbing plants such as ivy are also favourites. Spread plants throughout your garden, rather than just having one bed in a corner if you want to keep birds moving and give them plenty to explore. Fruit trees naturally attract plenty of bird interest. You can even make your lawn appealing, by scattering some wildflower seeds through it. Some well-placed arches with climbing plants growing over them can be a great bird-attractor too, and lovely to sit under for you. If you’re gardening to attract birds, make sure you don’t garden too efficiently. Birds like seeds, so don’t ruthlessly trim back your plants and remove the debris - give the birds a chance to find the seeds. Similarly, allow fallen fruit to stay on the ground for them to get their beaks into. You can write your own blogpost for Fennel & Fern. All you need to do is join the F&F community and submit a blogpost here. We publish all blogposts in theYour Blogs section of F&F, and put our favourite posts by members on the front page of the blog as well. Share this:Share One Response Suzie @gembuild March 10, 2012 There is a sense of fulfillment when you look after birds. I love it when we have the robins round, you can literally feed them from the palm of your hand. Very gratifying. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. Name* Email* Website Comment Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email.
Suzie @gembuild March 10, 2012 There is a sense of fulfillment when you look after birds. I love it when we have the robins round, you can literally feed them from the palm of your hand. Very gratifying. Reply
