For the organic gardener, birds are important friends. Attracting beneficial animals and insects can aid the gardener in achieving biological control of her garden. Birds can help control insects that damage plants while simultaneously adding aesthetic interest to the garden. Their cheerful songs, bright colors, and sprightly manner will entertain all visitors to your garden.
It is important to remember that organic gardens are more than just beautiful plants. These gardens are a synthesis of many aspects of nature’s wonders. Birds are one of nature’s most efficient insect predators. Once they become part of your garden, they are on daily duty. According to Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: “In an afternoon, one diminutive house wren can snatch up more than five hundred insect eggs, beetles, and grubs. Given a nest of tent caterpillars, a Baltimore oriole will wolf as many as seventeen of the pests per minute. More than 60 percent of the chickadees’ winter diet is aphid eggs. And the swallow lives up to its name by consuming massive quantities of flying insects—by one count, more than one thousand leafhoppers in twelve hours.”
As you can see, birds are a gardener’s best friend, and it is important to bring them into your garden. In the wintertime, food is often scarce for birds; place bird feeders in your yard and they will come. There are many bird feeders to choose from; by using a variety of bird feeders and placing them at different levels, you will draw the largest variety of birds. Birdseeds should include black-oil-type sunflower seed and white proso millet. More species can be attracted by adding red proso millet, black and gray sunflower seed, peanut kernels, niger thistle milo, cracked corn, safflower seed, pecans, pistachios, small golden millet seed, canary seed, and sunflower kernels. Beef suet cakes help birds maintain body heat during the winter months. A source of water that is openly visible will bring still more birds.
In addition to using strategies to attract birds to your garden during the winter months, it is also important to fill your garden with plants that attract birds year round. Many people like to feed birds throughout the year; I prefer feeding birds in the winter and allowing my garden to feed the birds for the other seasons. A great diversity in plant material is the key to drawing in a large bird population: a mixture of deciduous and evergreen plant material in tall, short, and medium heights, including a good mixture of annuals and perennials, and an abundance of ground cover plants and climbing vines. Trees are the backbone of any wildlife garden—they offer shelter and nesting spots; many also supply food at different times of the year. Evergreens are especially important, as they provide shelter and sometimes food year round. Shrubs also play an essential role; from viburnums to cotoneasters, they provide valuable food sources, as well as great cover. Plants that produce berries are always sought out by birds. Rose hips are avian delicacies, and flowering plants provide nectar and seed.
