Who Doesn’t Love Springtime Bird Watching? Here Are Some Tips To Help Prepare Your Yard For Our Wild Feathered Friends.

Preparing your yard for visiting birds can be a nice spring project. Wild birds can create an extravagant environment along with natural flowers, grasses, and plants.

To make your yard bird friendly, you need three things: food, water and shelter. With this simple approach, you can attract a variety of birds throughout most of the year.

1. Food. Set up several feeders throughout your yard with different types of food. Birds like variety. Feeders come in various forms, such as tray, hopper, window, and tube. You can use a bird guide to help you select food to attract certain species.

2. Water. Provide water by setting up shallow pans in various locations. Birds need a clean source of water low to the ground. Place gravel or clean sand in the bottom, and lay a few branches over the bath to allow birds to drink without getting wet. Empty and replace the water every other day to prevent mosquitoes or contamination.

3. Shelter. You can encourage birds to stay in your yard by providing shelter via nesting materials. Some birds like cavities to nest in while others prefer a partially closed in nest. Nesting materials include nest boxes (birdhouses), twigs, dry grass, etc. There are plenty of resources online that provide how-to instructions for building nest boxes. Check out Wikipedia’s nest box article. Cornell University also has great nest box instructions. (The image to the side is an Egg Bird House by J Schatz. This is not a paid endorsement. I just think it is a sweet looking bird house. They also have nice looking feeders too!)