What can you do to attract birds to your garden? The most important thing for birds to feel comfortable is a natural garden with native plants. A naturally designed garden looks much more alive and inviting than an accurately trimmed uniform green. Birds appreciate the wild and romantic flair and happily visit a living garden.
Birds not only enrich the garden visually and acoustically they are also part of the ecosystem and as natural enemies to many plant pests and will eat a lot of unwanted bugs. Especially during the breeding season, hatchlings need protein-rich insect food to grow quickly and become fledged.
How to attract birds to your garden
What can you do to attract birds to your garden? In spring, garden birds are looking for suitable nesting sites. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to find good nesting because places for nest building are often missing in modern well insulated houses. Taller trees and thick hedges are also rarely found in new housing developments.
Sleeping, Nesting and Food Sites
Create many opportunities where birds can find food. In autumn, birds need reserves for wintering or for the migration south. In autumn there are fewer insects so birds turn to the berries of which there are many late in the season. Very These include, for example, fruits of hawthorn, rowan, teasel, cotoneaster, elderberries, cones, privet, wild roses, sloe, viburnum, cornelian cherry, and barberry.
Thick thorn bushes and hedges offer attractive sleeping and nesting places at the same time because they protect songbirds from attacks by cats, and other enemies. You can combine the beautiful with the useful: foreign berry trees or ornamental varieties of native wild trees such as the mountain rowan (Sorbus decora) are also happy to be accepted by feathered friends.
Flower beds with wildflowers
The seeds of native wild herbs and flowers are also an important source of food for wild birds such as greenlings and golden bunting. Popular bird flowers are for example St. John’s wort, evening primrose or mugwort. Many wild herbs such as nettles and various plantains are also an important food source for some bird species – so you should leave a few weeds in hidden corners. The goldfinch specializes in the seeds of thistles, burdock and other daisies and therefore also bears the name Distelfink.
Attract insects
Not only plant seeds are eaten by birds, but also the insects that are found in herbaceous beds and flower meadows. Insectivorous species such as redstart, starling, robin and blue and great tit feed on caterpillars, beetles, and spiders, especially during the breeding season.
Pile of wood and branches
You should not throw away clippings from trees and shrubs in the green waste, but stack them up in a corner of the garden to form a pile of old wood. Robins, wren and hedge Brownell like to look for food there and use them as breeding grounds. Zilpzalpe also prefer to build their nests near the ground. If you leave perennials and a little bit of old grass, it attracts them to the garden. Greenhouse facades are just as useful, and the chaffinch usually breeds in treetops or tall bushes, where it hides its hemispherical nest.
Set up a Birdbath
Birds need water all year round: they quench their thirst and like to bathe in cool water, thus maintaining their plumage and cooling off in hot weather. With a birdbath, every garden will be much more attractive for our feathered friends. It is also a pleasure to watch the birds drink, bathe and splash around.
Nesting boxes and bird feeders
Hanging nesting boxes is an easy way to make the garden more attractive to sparrows, starlings, titmouse, nuthatch, redstart and other cave-breeding birds. The number of nesting boxes is also important: for example, starlings prefer to breed in a sociable group, while the redstart is more of a loner. When hanging up the nesting boxes, make sure that the entry holes on the weather side face away from the east and are not exposed to excessive sunlight. A nesting box should be out of the reach of weasels, cats, and other bird eaters. To protect the entry holes of wooden nesting boxes from nest predators such as the great spotted woodpecker, you can cover the entry hole with sheet steel.