Now Is The Time To Garden For Birds
By Kathy Kramer
Birding from home has become more important than ever in our current sheltered situation. Many of us are learning that it is possible to bird from our windows, yards and sidewalks. There are easy ways to make your home (and surrounding areas) hospitable for birdlife, even while sheltering-at-home. When we learn to include in our gardens the plants that provide food, shelter, and nesting areas for birds, we can watch native wildlife thrive.

Gardening for birds is crucial to helping the birds we love. You have likely heard that bird populations have plummeted over the last five decades, with a decline of nearly three billion birds across North America in that time period. The causes of this decline are many but include habitat loss, non-native ornamental plants, outdoor cats, roadside mortality, climate change, and building lights (which disrupt bird migrations and reduce birds’ food supply when moths exhaust themselves on outdoor lights). The current shelter-at-home orders have allowed some local wildlife to flourish again, but there’s so much more we can do to continue to encourage native populations to grow. This is especially true for birds.

The link between bird health and native plants is also becoming clearer. On the subject, wildlife ecologist Douglas Tallamy writes, “We must abandon the notion that humans and nature cannot live together… In order to have functioning ecosystems, we need to redesign residential landscapes to support diverse populations. Native plants support much more life than other [types of plants]. Choosing the best plants for your area is the key to [nature’s] success.”
The backstory behind the native versus ornamental non-native plants issue is fairly simple: while in the nest, and even after they leave it, almost all baby birds feed primarily on caterpillars. Baby birds do not live on seeds, or berries, or sugar water. Caterpillars are not optional in a baby bird diet. Simply put, if we don’t have caterpillars, we won’t have baby birds.

Here’s an example: it takes 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars, collected by both busy Chickadee parents over the course of sixteen days, to raise a clutch of Chickadee babies. And Chickadees are tiny birds; just a third of an ounce. How many caterpillars does it take to raise a Woodpecker, a bird about eight times heavier? Caterpillars come from the eggs of butterflies and moths, creatures who have specialized laying their eggs on just one or two types of host plants.…