Backyard Bird Watching Landscape Tips

Backyard Bird Watching Landscape Planning

Our Backyard Landscape Planning for Bird Watching

Our landscape and backyard birding areas is 90% natural.  Our land is divided into three parts, the field is 60%, living area 20% and woods 20%, the living area is between the field and woods.  The woods are between us and a meadow next to the lake.  Our bird houses are divided between the tree line and the fence line of the field, close to the living area. We are lucky to have open areas, wooded areas and water near by for the birds.

This environment has given us the opportunity to attract many different types of birds.  Some birds like the security of the woods, others like the openness of the fields and others like the water.  Our natural nesting birds are the meadowlarks, kingbirds, flycatchers, killdeers, morning doves, towhees, sparrows, crossbills, grosbeaks, chickadees, pine siskins, and humming birds, as best we can tell.  Our box nesters are covered below in the bird house section.

Our backyard birding plan was easy because of our natural environment. There just wasn't  much we needed to do to attract birds, however, we have noticed an increase in population as we provided more bird feeders.  What we are saying is we haven't had much experience in special planning for backyard birding, so we have provided additional information and a few links in Birds Eye View website that may be helpful in planning your backyard for backyard birding.

Bird Houses

The bluebirds and swallows seem to prefer the open area bird house locations, the robins like the nest boxes under the eaves of the shop and in the trees.  The nuthatches and wrens are attracted to the bird house on the edge or just inside the tree line.

Our bird houses for the bluebird are deeper than for the swallows, nuthatches and wrens.  One thing that always amazed us is the lack of cooperation from the birds in using the correct bird house.  Matter of fact, a chipmunk took over the nuthatches home when they took off for a week or so with their new kids.  What an interesting confrontation when they returned to find a chipmunk in their home.  The confrontation was interesting to watch, nuthatch cleaned out their house, then the chipmunk would move back in, after a couple of weeks, the chipmunk won out.

Don't forget to place predator guards under or above your bird house if your having problems with predators.  Just a thin sheet of tin about 18 to 24 inches high rapped around the pole, post or tree should do the trick.  There are many methods used but we find this the simplest.

Bird Feeders

We have three different types of bird feeders.  One large hay barn bird feeders for the larger birds (blackbirds and grosbeaks), a medium size country home bird feeder for the medium sized birds (crossbills and house finch) and a smaller log cabin bird feeder for the small birds (pine siskin and gold finch).  They never seem to understand which bird feeder is for them, go figure.

Our hay barn bird feeders are on 3'x3' platforms mounted on top of a post, the country home bird feeder is hanging from a branch of a tall pine tree and the log cabin bird feeder is mounted on a post right out side our office window.  In the winter when the snow is stacked high on the bird feeders it is a wonderful sight to see them full, serving up a meal for all the wild birds that stayed behind for the winter.

Don't forget to provide water for the wild birds.  Bird baths are an excellent way to provide water for drinking and bird baths.  Be sure to clean the birdbaths when you add or change the water to prevent the birds for passing  diseases to one another when using the bird baths.  One of the problems we have experienced with our birdbath has been bees taking over the birdbath during hot days.  The only solution we have found for this problem is by determining the main location of the bees and placing another birdbath or bucket of water with some wood floats inside, close to that location.  A major honey beehive, ours contain about one million bees, will need a lot of water during very hot days.  Some days they will use about 12 - 18 inches of water out of a 55 gallon drum.

Wild Bird Care

Wild bird care is so easy to overlook because the wild birds have taken care of themselves for thousands of years.  Well, that all changed since the industrial revolution.  We know the wild birds managed to survive natures tantrums: hurricanes, tornados,  storms, volcanoes, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes, etc.  However, we don't think it even compares with the pollution of chemicals in our environment, foods and whatever else.  We see wild bird care as being aware of these problems and doing what you can to minimize their exposure to these chemicals and subsequent diseases.

The more natural you live, the less problems you'll have with the birds,  especially if you don't use any type of chemicals around your place.  As we see it, our primary responsibility as wild bird enthusiasts is cleaning and sanitizing the bird houses and bird feeders, and minimizing the use of chemicals around our property.  Another area  we seem to neglect when it comes to wild bird care is providing a balanced diet for them.

We know that the pine siskins like Niger thistle seeds but our local feed store doesn't always have them.  We go through many sacks of black oiled sunflower seeds each year and the siskins seem to like the sunflower seeds.  However, it is said that they can become compacted if this is their only diet and don't get enough water.   The sacks of mixed seeds are expensive, and would cost us an arm and a leg each year.  When we use the mixed seeds we find most of the seeds untouched except for the sunflower seeds, thistle seeds and millet seeds.  We've been at this a long time and are still learning.  Nature has it's own way of taking care of itself and we figure our attempt to help out is more for our own desire to attracted wild birds to our place than the help them out.  Sad but true.

Now, winter is a different story.  That's when we know we are helping by feeding the wild birds that stay behind, because of the severe cold and deep snow they are limited in finding their food source.  Since our lake (river) doesn't freeze we don't worry about providing water, it's close.

Our trees provide some shelter for them, but  winter shelters with perches are helpful for them on those cold, windy days.  Most of our winter birds are juncos and black cap chickadees.  During winter we also feed cracked corn to the wild turkeys and morning doves.  We have actually had wild turkeys, doves and deer eating from the bird feeders.

As far as predators go we have a few.  Some farm cats show up once in awhile.  The kestrel and other small hawks and falcons are our number one problem for the smaller wild birds and nestlings, but that is nature doing its thing, as sad as it is at times.

Backyard birding is a wonderful experience, we enjoy our evenings out on the deck watching the birds and listening to their individual evening concertos which combines into a beautiful symphony.  It's really a thrill when they start allowing us to get within a few feet of the feeders.  Even the morning doves stay on the ground when we get up to walk around.  The crossbills and pine siskins are the friendliest, they actually come over and land beside us for short periods of time.  One day a pine siskin landed on my glass of water while I was holding it, took a drink, and flew back to the feeder. 

About wild bird care and diseases, a problem we have experienced has been several deaths of pine siskins and crossbills in our backyard.  We wrote to Washington State University Ornithology Department about this and here is the reply.

Jack:  Usually when we see large numbers of dead birds (pine siskins are the most common) it is because of disease outbreaks effecting the local population.  The culprit most often is salmonella (a bacteria) which is spread through unclean backyard feeding areas.  Many pine siskins were found dead of salmonellosis in Okanogan county last May.  Other songbirds, such as finches, are also effected by this disease, though we tend to see more siskins with the problem.

The best bet is to make sure that all bird feeders and water baths are kept very clean; even the ground underneath feeding stations.  Scrubbing feeders once a week with a dilute bleach solution should do the trick.  Just make sure to rinse well.

Since salmonellosis can be spread to humans via contact, please wear gloves when handling any dead birds.   Also, wear a dust mask when you clean out your feeders, to prevent inhalation of the bacteria.

You may find the following fact sheet to be helpful.

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/facts/salm.html

Thanks for keeping an eye out for our feathered friends!

We hope this helps you, it sure has for us.

A final note:  So try to sanitize your feeders  once a week or at least once a month and your birdhouses every spring.

Plants to Flowers for the Birds

Trees, plants, and flowers seem to be a regional choice for attracting birds. Our number one plants for seed birds are sunflowers, then grass (hay) seeds. For the berry and fruit birds, in our case, is wild choke cherries, and the hummers and butterflies love flowers of all kinds. Check with your local bird clubs or plant store for the right plants for your area to attract birds to your backyard. This may sound strange, but I put all our unused worms on the lawn for the meat eaters, especially the robins.