Ways to Attract and Welcome Birds to Your Yard

It seems watching a bird in the yard can put a smile on most people's faces. You do not need to have a garden to attract the birds into your yard. Even if you live in an apartment with a tiny balcony you can attract birds with some of these ideas.

Welcoming Birds in to your yard:

Having some fresh water for them to drink is a must.
You will want to have some food available.
Trees or bird houses for shelter, from predators and bad weather.
Plant a few favorite flowers for the birds in a container or two.
If you are starting a landscape think of planting fruit trees, evergreens, berry bushes and flowers that seed.

Inexpensive starters for attracting Birds:

Have a trellis or old ladder with some honeysuckle or morning glories planted under it.
Put up some suet in a onion or potato sack.
Take a tomato cage and put a terra cotta saucer (drill holes) or an old strainer on it and fill with birdseed.
Put up a humming bird feeder.
Fill a window box with flowers, with a small saucer of water in the middle.
Throw a handful of sunflowers seeds on the sunny side of your house or a building.
Hang bird feeder and birdhouses in your yard.
Hang a pine cone smeared with peanut butter, dipped in birdseed from a tree branch.
Take a small terra cotta pot, fill with birdseed; put an old fork in the birdseed (handle in seed) and stick a half an orange on to the fork.
Make a garland of string or yarn and put on peanuts, cranberries, raisins, popcorn or stale bread.
Put a gazing ball in your yard.

Here is a list of what some birds eat:

Bluebirds - Suet, millet, fruit.
Blue Jays - Sunflowers seeds, cracked corn, peanuts on an open bird feeder.
Cardinals - Sunflower seeds, Safflower seeds, cracked corn, Daisies, Purple cone flower, sugar water.
Chickadees - Sunflower seeds, Safflower seeds, sugar water, suet.
Finches - Niger seed, Thistle, Purple cone flowers, Black-eyed Susan's, Bachelor Buttons, Cosmos, sugar water.
Humming birds - Nectar, Phlox, Fuchsia, Bee Balm, Hibiscus, Aster.
Junco - mainly ground feeder, millet, mixed seed, Sunflowers hulled, cracked corn.
Nuthatches - Safflower seeds, Sunflower seeds, suet.
Orioles - Orange halves, Grape jelly, sugar water.
Robins - Fruit, earthworms.
Sparrows - Daisies, Black-eyed Susan's, cracked corn.
Towhees - Daisies Back-eyed Susan's, Purple cone flowers.
Woodpeckers - Suet, Sunflower seeds, peanuts, fruit.
Wrens - Beetles, moths, grasshoppers, Suet.

Help our Feathered Friends by:

Saving your dryer lint, hair from your brush and old string or yarn, put outside in early spring to help the birds build their nests.
Have a brush pile some where in your yard so they have a place of protection.
Save and freeze bacon grease, chicken fat and pork fat for making suet treats.

Recipes for the Birds:

Humming bird nectar (Sugar water) -
Boil 1 part sugar to 4 parts water, let cool.

Birdie Bread -
1 cup corn meal
1 cup Bisquick
½ cup flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon of baking powder
2 eggs
10 ounces of applesauce
You can add bird seed, nuts, or fruits if you like.
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, add eggs and applesauce. Mix well.
Put mixture in a 9" greased pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes. Cut in to pie slices, use as needed, can be frozen.

Suet Muffins -
1 cup suet (cut in to small pieces)
1 cup cornmeal
2 cup birdseed
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup oats
Melt suet in pan on a low flame., add the rest of the ingredients in order given and mix well. Pour in to paper lined or well greased muffin tins. Chill till hardened.