Milwaukee Organic - Milwaukee's Eco Friendly Site

Milwaukee Organic - Milwaukee's Eco Friendly Site

What Role Does Your Bird Garden Play In Natural Bird Habitats?

All yards can, potentially, be natural bird habitats.

Just because neighborhoods have replaced natural habitats, there's no need to panic. The right selection and location of plants will offer a nearly natural habitat for wild birds.

Amazingly, song birds readily accept this substitution, as our backyard bird gardens become an extension of the surrounding natural habitat.

Converting your backyard into a bird garden can be the focus of many family activities. In fact, just watching and feeding songbirds is a great way for families to start practicing bird conservation... right at home.

Those members of the family with limited mobility can still enjoy nature from the deck or patio, even a window. Imagine the benefits of a bird garden for seniors and shut-ins, and for the ill or disabled.

Backyard bird gardens are perfect conservation classrooms. One of the most exciting lessons is discovering the different species of birds in your area.

You will need a good, easy-to-use field identification guide, such as Birds of North America, or Peterson's East and West. An online search for "bird field guides" will provide you with many more.

Birds are identified according to their physical characteristics. For example, you can easily see the difference between a chicken and a robin.

These characteristics are helpful in recognizing the birds that visit your bird garden: Size - overall ; Shape of their bodies; Coloring; Special markings; Shapes of their beaks; Shape of their wings and their feet while in flight.

Your entire family, especially the kids, will become experts at recognizing bird calls. Each species is unique, and most are obvious. A Sparrow's "chipping" is quite plain when compared to a Cardinal's lovely "trilling" song.

A natural bird habitat can actually be a neighborhood of backyards (from a bird's point of view)... and each backyard gardener contributes to the success of this unique bird habitat.

So, the question remains... just how vital is your individual garden to wild birds?

If you have selected and located your plantings correctly, wild birds will be as comfortable in your backyard as they would be in the wild.

Undeniably, the answer is... you and your bird garden are absolutely vital to their survival!

Susan Nelson Hopkins is an online gardening expert from Carlsbad, NM and writes for a unique group of websites at http://www.susansgardens.com . She specializes in creating gardens that will attract birds. For an original version of this and other gardening articles, visit http://www.susansbirdgardens.com/cs-pro/spin/?c=gardening . For more bird gardening information, please visit www.susansbirdgardens.com



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