Birds in the garden

In this article you will find several tips that will help make your site moreattractive to birds. Putting one or two feeders, unfortunately, is not enough. During the day, small birds constantly eat something, so they need to be able to find food 365 days a year.

Why do we need birds in the garden?

First of all, being in a garden surrounded by birdsong is a wonderful pastime in itself. Listening to the tweets of tits and the loud tapping of the woodpecker, watching how the goldfinches jump from plant to plant, we get the opportunity to get some rest from this crazy world and feel the connection with nature.

Birds bring us great benefits. One swallow can eat hundreds of insects in the afternoon. By attracting insectivorous birds to our garden, we reduce the number of pests that attack both the plants and ourselves.

Recommendations for attracting birds

Take a look at the garden through the eyes of our feathered friends. Here are 5 tips to help you:

1. Along with such natural foods as seeds, fruits, berries, or nectar, your garden also offers plenty of delicious insects, caterpillars, worms, and spiders. The more diverse your plantings, the more bird species you will attract.
2. In addition to ready-made food supplies and clean water, birds need places to hide and build their nests. Pines and dense conifers save from wind gusts and rain in bad weather. They also provide reliable protection from predators, and in the spring they become an ideal place for nesting.
3. Speaking of the best trees for birds, mention should be made of oak, cedar, birch, maple, bird cherry and irgu. Together with insects, seeds and fruits, they provide birds with a safe shelter and nest sites. Decorative planting of wild apple and cherry, mulberry, holly and mountain ash will attract flocks of birds with their flowers and berries.
4. Local shrub species are particularly attractive, providing the birds in your area with suitable food. They create an extra level of shelter under taller trees.
5. There are a large number of perennial and annual plants on which the birds are comfortable. It is important that their seeds are easily accessible to birds. Plantings that have blooming flowers and buds that grow on vertical stems are rich in seeds that are easily accessible to birds.

Taking care of birds

As soon as the birds settle in your garden, be attentive to their needs. Eliminate the risk of fertilizer and household chemicals used.

You may have to postpone pruning if the robin family decides to make a nest among the forsythia branches. Instead of diligently collecting all the fallen flowers, let the birds eat their seeds. Let your yard remain a little wild, but there will be plenty of shelters for birds. Do not cut down old trees until they pose a danger to people and buildings. Cavities in such trees serve as homes for some birds, and are also rich in nutritious insects and larvae.

Your efforts will be rewarded a hundredfold, because the birds protect against beetles, garden pests and mosquitoes. By planting various food sources in each season, you will ensure the year-round presence of feathered friends at the site and see that successful gardening and birds go hand in hand.

How to predict the weather by bird behavior

Did you know that the behavior of birds can help predict the weather? Take a closer look and you will be surprised at what you can find. On this subject, there are some folk signs.

For example, if the birds are high in the sky, this indicates clear weather:

• hawks flying high to a clear sky;
• when they fly low, wait for a thunderstorm.

As a rule, if a storm is coming, the birds stop flying and hide in shelters. They will also soar low to avoid the unpleasant sensation of falling air pressure:

• when seagulls fly deep into land - wait for the thunderstorm;
• when the birds take shelter during the daytime - expect rain;
• petrels, nestling under the stern of the ship, indicate bad weather.

Before the big storm, birds are usually not heard. If you have ever walked through the forest before a thunderstorm, then you feel this oppressive silence. When the birds start singing in the rain, this indicates that the weather will soon improve.

Here are some more popular signs:

• if crows fly in pairs, expect good weather, a lonely crow is a sign of bad weather;
• whiteness of the goosebone indicates the severity of winter: the brighter the dark red spots on it, the worse the cold;
• if partridges cluck loudly in the fall, this indicates a mild winter;
• when domestic geese move to the east, and then fly to the west, it speaks of the approaching cold;
• when the swallow's nest is high, the summer will be very dry, however, if it settles low, you can safely reap and sow.

People have a lot to learn from animals. Their intuition is developed much stronger, and habits often speak better than any weather report.

About the benefits of birds in the garden - video