Simple steps to attract birds to your garden

by Ceeforina
(Boston)

Even in a tiny urban patch such as ours, it is still a fairly simple matter to provide much needed habitat and food to attract birds to your garden. Planting the right things will draw them to you, but providing ongoing food and water throughout the changing seasons will keep them coming back for more (it is especially vital not to forget that they need a water supply - even if it is just a bowl of fresh water left out and cleaned regularly - during winter as well as summer).

Let your garden be a haven - decking, and too tidied beds are the enemies of all wildlife. Garden debris can provide good nesting materials. Where possible, birds require grass, not concrete, and ground/wall cover such as ivy is good, too, harboring as it does all sorts of delicious snacks, as well as possible nesting space. Plants with berries, hedgerow, trees (even a small garden may have room for a pot apple or small prunus, native flowers that provide seed heads are all very desirable.)

Go as organic as possible! If you really must use chemicals in your garden, then keep them to an absolute minimum.

Buy - or make! - some nesting boxes of a suitable size for the birds you want to attract. Like the ones we have, they wont necessarily be used, but we live in hope!

In winter, if you have room, use a bird table or hang fat balls, but don't get too annoyed if you also attract hungry squirrels!

A lovely consequence will be plants with a good supply of nectar that also bring bees, butterflies and moths.

Watch birds nest and live in your backyard. Check out Mastergarding.com for birdfeeders, baths and seed.