How to Attract Birds To Your Yard with Four Easy Tips

Birds are wonderful. The best part is attracting birds to your yard can be very easy.

No doubt about it, when you have birds singing their songs around you, you can't help but feel great in your backyard!

Attracting birds can also help to spread plants, control insects, and more.

Birds are a vital part of any local ecosystem. As a result, any landscaping project should include a way to attract birds to your yard.

Here are four easy tips to attract more birds to your yard!

Tip #1 Feed the Birds

It’s no secret, the easiest way to attract birds is to provide food for them.

If you put out a bird feeder and some seed, they will come to the feeders to get something to eat. Before you know it, the word will spread and you will be dealing with plenty of birds coming to your feeder every single day.

Even better, you can also provide natural food in the form of plants that provide fruit or nectar but make sure you use native plants to the area. If you still aren’t sure exactly what types of food to use, this bird food list can help you select the best food for the species of birds you want to attract to your lawn.

Be aware of local laws regarding the feeding seeds to birds. In some places, there may be laws to prevent feeding bears, and in others, there may be laws protecting bird species. Check out this guide on birding laws from Audubon for more information.

Tip # 2 Provide them Shelter

Simply put, give the birds some shelter.

Here's why, ]the birds in your area need shelter from predators, but also from the hot sun as well as the rain. As a result, attracting birds to your property is easily done with bird shelters.

Provide local birds shelter by installing nest boxes in your area which provide good shelter with proper ventilation for local birds.

There's a catch, don't put the shelter next to a bird feeder though, because the birds won't go to the shelter due to a large number of birds flying around the feeder.

You could take it one step further. If you are going to have a shelter, you can also provide some nesting material for the birds, including yarn, string, straw, hair, cloth and more.

No doubt about it, there are many different types of bird feeders for all types of birds. Selecting the right birdhouse can bring many unique species of birds.

Tip #3 Provide Water

Provide a water source for your birds.

This is crazy, but birds are attracted to the sound of dripping and moving water.

You can get a birdbath, or a shallow pond with a fountain if you like.

The water source should not be more than one inch deep, and it should be away from where cats may lurk.

Tip #4 Grow Native Plants!

Again, go with native plants. A local field guide can tell you what plants grow best in the area, and which will attract birds to your yard. One of my favorite tools for finding native plants is Native Plant Finder. With this tool, you can find native plants by zip code, it's pretty cool!

It gets better, attracting birds to your lawn isn’t even the only benefit of using local plant spices.

Besides attracting birds native plants also:

Attract and support local pollinators such as honey bees
Easily established in your gardens
Require little maintenance, water, fertilizer, or pesticides
Resist local plant pests such as bugs, and fungi

As you can see native plant species are amazing for many reasons, attracting native birds is only one of them!

What’s the Bottom Line?

Birds are vital for ecosystems and attracting them is easy. In fact, it is an important part of landscaping.

Feed them using bird feeders and native plants, provide shelter and water sources like birdbaths. Native plants attract birds, support pollinators, and need less maintenance.

Landscaping for birds adds beauty and benefits.

If you are going to use the lawn care services here at YourGreenPal, then you should consider adding features to your lawn which attract birds.

While you are at it, you can help attract things like butterflies to your yard, which are, of course, a great addition to the birds.

If you go the extra mile, it will be a regular sanctuary for birds and butterflies.

You can also take pleasure in journaling the types of birds in your area. Nowadays there are even apps where you can help local birding communities track local bird populations! Cornell University has two great birding app. One is called Merlin Bird ID, which helps you identify the birds that visit, and eBird which allows you to work with others in keeping track of bird populations across America.

REMEMBER- If you need help for your lawn GreenPal offers lawn mowing and landscaping on-demand in St. Petersburg, Florida, Nashville, TN, Tampa, Florida and throughout the continental US.