subject: Three Things That Your Garden Needs To Attract Birds [print this page] Three Things That Your Garden Needs To Attract Birds
Bird watching is a great activity any time of the year. And, if you like to watch birds, love seeing them in your garden, and love the songs that they sing to each other, then you probably want to attract more of them to your garden. Doing that is not very difficult at all. You simply have to make your garden as bird friendly for them as possible.
If you can manage to do just that one thing, they will continue to come back day after day. After all, birds don't need a lot to be happy. If you give them the basics - water, shelter, and food, they will be more than happy.
Water is probably more important for birds than most mammals. This is because they need it to give their wings a proper cleaning to help them fly. They will usually get most of the water that they need through a combination of insects that they eat, wild fruits, the rain, and even the morning dew. In the winter time, they can get some of it from snow.
But, if you are looking to attract birds, what they really love is open water. It attracts birds for a number of reasons. One thing is that it provides them with an opportunity to bathe and give their wings a good cleaning - which helps them to fly. So, if you can manage to find a place for a bird bath in your garden, that alone will attract a lot of birds to your yard. This is especially true in the winter time when open water can be hard to find. In the winter, a heated bird bath makes all the difference in the world as it prevents the water from freezing.
The second thing that birds will be on the lookout for is shelter. And they want it for a number of reasons. With shelter, they are protected from predators, it gives them shelter from the elements, and it gives them a place where they can set up nests and raise their young.
Birds love to find birdhouses that are waiting, and ready for them to move in. If you place them in your garden, bird houses will be appreciated also and will give them another reason to choose your garden to raise their young instead of somewhere else.
And, lastly, to attract birds to your yard, you will need food. During certain times of the year, when insects are plentiful, food is not a big problem for birds. But in times of drought or in the winter, food can sometimes be hard to find.
Not only that, but in colder weather a bird will need to consume a lot more calories than normal just to keep its body from shutting down due to hypothermia. So at a time when they most need food, they can find that it is in scarce supply. If, however, you can help them out by providing feeders filled with their favorite food, once they locate the feeder, you can be sure that they will continue to come back for more.
