Your Bird Friendly Garden
Key takeaway for your backyard gardening: native plants
Researched and written by Louise Daley based on an articles of Chicago Bird Alliance and Audubon for presentation on Bird Conservation/Nature Studies for elementary school students and Reed Turner Botanical Artists members.
Jewelweed and Ruby Throated Hummingbird
Native Matters
Let’s start with “native matters" because the plant-insect-bird interdependence works best in a healthy habitat dominated by native plants. Native plants are the plants that have historically grown in a particular area and evolved with the insects, birds, and other wildlife that also live there.
EXAMPLE: Research by the entomologist Doug Tallamy has shown that native oak trees support over 500 species of caterpillars (butterfly and moth larvae) whereas ginkgos, a commonly planted landscape tree from Asia, host only 5 species of caterpillars.
FYI: it takes more than 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees - so the choice for oaks over ginkos is clearly better for the birds.
Insect - Bird - Plant Connection
Plants provide food, warmth, habitat, and protection for birds. Sap, nectar, seeds, fruit, on a rare occasion leaves, and the cornucopia of insects plants attract provide food. The food provides both nourishment and warmth. Food, especially fatty foods like seeds, in cold weather creates energy as bird metabolism generates heat.
The leafy canopy, the cavities of trees, the dense thickets, the underbrush of the forest floor, the towering tall grasses of prairies all provide a habitat for nesting and protection from weather and predators. Plant, leaves, grasses, twigs, and fibers, provide nesting materials.
Whether omnivorous, herbivorous, carnivorous, insectivorous, folivores, frugivorous, or nectarivorous, no bird fits completely into one category and are plant dependent as birds seek out a place in the environment and eat a wide variety of foods depending on the season and environment.
Food for Thought
Nectar - Plants that provide nectar for birds include: bee balm, cardinal flower, purple coneflower, honeysuckle, butterfly milkweed, columbine, garden phlox, penstemon, coreopsis, blue sage, and various types of salvia.
Sap - Sapsuckers and other birds drink sap from trees and vines, especially those that are weakened or wounded by disease, insects, lightning, or wind. The sap of trees in poor health contains higher levels of protein and amino acids, and is similar in sugar and nutrient content to flower nectar. Some trees that provide sap for birds include: Sugar maple, Birch, American beech, Wild grapevine.
Seeds - trees, shrubs, and grasses provide seed as well as the angiosperms - the flowing plants. Audubon Database of Plants link below will list plants by area.
Fruit - Nearly 4000 bird species eat fruit from plants, shrubs, and trees like mulberries, wild black as well as cherries, and oranges.
River Grape and Northern Cardinal
Insects - When it comes to nesting season, plants support most land birds in a slightly more indirect way: by hosting the protein-rich insects that baby birds need to develop properly. Indeed, 96% of land birds feed insects to their young. And the majority of these insects need plants to survive. Insects lay their eggs on plants, eat plant tissues, suck plant sap and nectar, eat flower pollen, and even consume decaying or dead plant material. Therefore, leaving debris in the garden areas protecting new plant growth, enriching the soil, and providing a habitat for beneficial insects.
Leaves? Grasses? Only about 3% of all bird species regularly eat leaves. It is a digestive challenges: and not very nutritious. Many small birds eat the seeds of grasses and large birds graze on the plant itself. Native ornamental grasses attract seed eating and nesting birds to backyards.
Resources
Audubon Database of Plants by Zip Code https://www.audubon.org/native-plants
Native Plant Gardening for Birds/ Chicago Area is Especially Important for Migrating Birds
https://chicagobirdalliance.org/native-plant-gardening-birds
Why Native Matters