Providing welcoming habitat to attract birds to yards not only provides entertainment and sparks curiosity to bird watchers but can also be a resource of food and shelter for the avians.
Commonly, feeders, birdbaths and birdhouses have been the primary ways property owners have attracted birds to the yard, but offering native plants, water features and ponds, rocks and debris can provide shelter and food for the birds and what they eat.
In a landscaped area, yard debris and rocks can be utilized as insect habitat. In a previous article by the Reflector, NatureScaping of Southwest Washington President Meredith Hardin said homeowners can do a lot around the garden and in backyard habitats during the fall and early winter seasons to ensure helpful insects and wildlife, along with plant life, survive and thrive for the next spring bloom.
With the moderate temperatures at the start of this winter, many insects are still active before finding winter shelter becomes crucial, giving gardeners additional time to gather yard waste.
Hardin encourages gardeners to “embrace the messiness.”
Rather than cleaning out fallen leaves, sticks and branches, Hardin advised gardeners to gather the organic plant matter to help aid insects, reptiles and amphibians survive over the colder months. While it may look messy, placing 2 to 3 inches of organic material in bare spots of gardens and yards will help beneficial wildlife live for next spring’s bloom season by keeping them warm and hidden from the elements. She said it is important that the organic materials have not been exposed to pesticides.
Hardin added that the organic matter needs to remain a couple of inches away from trees and shrub stems so the bases of those bigger plants do not rot, but covering any bare earth is crucial for insect survival.
As well as shelter for avian food, a landscaped area away from pet traffic can be attractive to nest-builders.
Native plants are an important piece to attracting birds, which eat the seeds, utilize the leaves and branches for shelter and a perch and attract insects that provide more food options to birds other than seed and suet. Roughly 96% of all terrestrial bird species in North America feed insects to their young.
Entomologist Doug Tallamy, a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, strongly encouraged the use of native plants at a 2023 Pollinator Festival hosted by Clark Public Utilities.
“Natives support the local biodiversity and the non-natives are very poor at that,” Tallamy said in a previous article by the Reflector. “Why do we need local biodiversity? Because it runs the ecosystems that keep you alive, so it’s important. It’s pollinators, but it’s also the caterpillars that drive the food web that eat the plants that pollinators planted. It’s all tied together.”
Tallamy added that a single bird raising young can go through thousands of caterpillars.
“You know, a chickadee needs almost 10,000 caterpillars to get one clutch through. If they’re going to breed in your yard, where are they going to get this,” Tallamy said.
In a study of suburban properties in southeast Pennsylvania, the Audubon Society stated in an article, that eight times more wood thrushes, Eastern towhees, veeries and scarlet tanagers were found in yards with native plants compared with landscaped yards that feature exotic ornamental plants. Similar results can be found right in Clark County as dozens of bird species raise young powered by caterpillars and other insects.
