Making Your Garden Bird-Friendly this Fall

With the right practices, your yard can become a welcoming oasis for birds during the cold months.

 

Your garden is teeming with flowers, butterflies, trees, and shrubs, but imagine if it was also a sanctuary for birds! With the proper landscaping, you can give birds food and shelter in your yard throughout the seasons, especially in the winter. Here are the best ways to attract resident and migratory birds to your yard this fall.

 

How Do I Attract Birds to My Yard? 

Hosting birds in your yard is easy if you know what they want, so providing food, shelter, and water is your ticket to birdwatching success. For birds, food comes from insects, berries, fruit, seeds, cones, nuts, and grains, and the more of these things we can grow with plants, the better! When it comes to shelter, many birds are looking for the cover of trees and shrubs, and the more biodiversity you have in your yard, the more feeding and shelter opportunities you’ll provide for birds. 

Now, let’s look at specific ways to attract birds this fall and winter.

 

Leave Dead Flowers Standing 

Leaving dead flowers in the garden might not be your idea of beauty, but it’s a great way to add winter interest to your garden and provide a feast for birds during the cold months. In particular, seedy flowerheads are the best, including sunflowers, black-eyed Susan’s, coneflowers, globe thistle, bee balm, and lavender. Leaving flowers standing also provides a hibernation home for beneficial insects, which some birds can find and eat during the winter. Remember to leave your ornamental grasses standing, too, as the grass seeds, or grains, are a bird’s delight!

 

Rake Fall Leaves Into Your Garden 

Raking fall leaves into your garden for the winter is another double whammy for birds and garden health as the leaves feed and protect your soil. They also provide overwintering grounds for many friendly insects that benefit your garden next spring, like ladybugs, beetles, and lacewings. During the winter, this leaf mulch becomes a snack bar for ground-feeding birds like juncos and robins, who will find and happily enjoy some of these insects.  

 

Selecting Bird-Friendly Plants for Autumn: Native Pennsylvania Shrubs, Trees, and Perennials

Growing native plants in your garden is one of the best ways to create homes for birds in your yard long-term. Of course, you can’t grow them all at once, but fall is an ideal window for planting new plants in your yard. The following plant categories are valuable to birds:

 

• Evergreens: Conifers check almost every box for many bird species, especially in the winter. Dense leaves that stay on all year and a nearly infinite supply of cones provide important nest sites, high-energy food, and shelter from cold weather. They are even more valuable for many species than providing nest boxes.
• Summer-Fruiting Shrubs and Trees: Berries provide a lot of sustenance for birds during the growing season. Bird-friendly, summer fruiting plants include blackberries, blueberries, cherries, chokecherries, elderberries, native honeysuckle, native mulberry, and raspberry.

• Autumn-Fruiting Shrubs and Trees: Migratory birds passing through town in the fall will seek sustenance from autumn fruits, including dogwoods, mountain ash, and buffalo berries. Resident birds also feed on these important shrubs and trees.

 

• Winter Berries and Fruit: Many trees and shrubs hold onto their fruit throughout the winter—feeding robins, waxwings, grosbeaks, and mockingbirds, among others. These valuable species include crabapple, highbush cranberry, native bittersweet, snowberry, sumacs, viburnum, Virginia creeper, and winterberry.
• Acorns and Nut Trees: Beeches, buckeyes, butternuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, hickories, and walnuts provide valuable high-calorie food throughout the fall and winter for many birds. Jays, titmice, and woodpeckers are among the birds most fond of nuts and acorns. These lofty trees also provide excellent bird nest sites during the mating season.
• Flowers and Grasses: Perennials in your garden also provide important food sources, either through the nectar itself for hummingbirds, through the insects they attract, or through the seeds they develop.

     

 

Feeding Our Feathered Friends: Tips for Fall and Winter Bird Feeders 

A diversity of plants is the best way to bring a diversity of birds to your garden, but bird feeders still play a role in providing food in the winter when other sources are scarce. Plain, uncoated seeds like sunflower seeds and Nyjer are the best, rather than selections loaded with corn starch or additives. Choose a place visible for you and the birds, but away from a collision zone with windows. 

 

Providing Fresh Water Sources for Fall Birds

Fresh, open water is another treat for birds in the winter, and keeping it from freezing is important when temperatures plummet. A heated bird bath can be a fantastic way for birds to stay clean in the winter, but any bath is good as long as you keep it clean. 

Creating a home for birds in your yard is a year-round project, and a little preparation in the fall can go a long way to hosting both resident and migratory birds over the winter. For everything you need to create a home for winter birds, visit our garden center in Glenside, PA.

 

Interested in more bird information? Check out TTF’s Bird Guide here—or, pop into the garden center and pick one up at the desk, no charge!