You don’t need to travel far to see stunning birds — in fact, they’re often right in our backyards.
But if you want to welcome more feathered friends to your yard, it’s important to think beyond bird feeders.
Mariette Nowak is an ecologist, former director of the Wehr Nature Center, and the author of Birdscaping for Wisconsin and the Great Lakes Region. Nowak says growing native plants can create a year-round bird sanctuary — she features 50 native plants in her book to help beginner gardeners get started.
Lake Effect’s Xcaret Nuñez spoke with Nowak for this month’s Chirp Chat to learn how people can create a pocket of paradise for birds this spring.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why are native plants good for birds?
Native plants provide more variety of foods than we can do at our feeders, and native plants have evolved with birds through centuries and centuries, and they produce just the right kind of food at the right time of year for birds and the right nutrition. So evolving through the years, Mother Nature has perfected things.
I do love to have bird feeders, especially in the winter when there aren't as many plants, fruits and seeds available in your garden. But some birds don't eat seeds. Only a relatively small fraction of birds come to feeders, and a lot of birds eat a lot of fruit, which we usually don't put in our feeders and insects, in particular. Baby birds need insects to have the protein that they need to grow up and become adult birds, especially caterpillars — they're juicy, they're full of protein for baby birds; about 90% of birds really need caterpillars and other insects to feed their young.
What do you recommend as the first step in getting a garden ready for birds?
The first step would really be to prepare the soil that you're going to plant them in, taking out all the plants that are there. Having bare ground is really best. And of course, it's particularly important to get rid of invasive plants, which tend to take over and will really wipe out any planting that you do if you don't take them out.
There are three big invasive plants to pay attention to: That would be Buckthorn and [non-native] Honeysuckle — those are both shrubs — and an herbaceous plant called Garlic Mustard. Garlic Mustard can take over and wipe out the good and native plants that are in the understory. It can be quite aggressive. It's very easy to pull out, but it's it can be brought in by animals too, even after you take it out. But once you get it out, it does reduce in numbers quite a bit.
Then buckthorn and honeysuckle are shrubs, and they do have berries, but the berries aren't the best value for birds. It can also take over woodlands and reduce the growth of trees. Usually, the best way is to cut them down and just put a little dash of herbicide on their trunks so they don't grow well.
What are some beginner-friendly plants you recommend people start planting around spring?
Black Eyed Susans are so popular and lovely, they're also pretty hardy. Purple Coneflowers and Wild Bergamot are some of the beautiful ones that I think would be pretty hardy in most cases. These [native plants] would attract insects while they're growing, and then they'll have seeds galore for the birds that are seed eaters.
But having a variety of native plants that provide for birds throughout the growing season is really the best. We've had some droughty years in the past and then flooding in other times, so it's really good to have that variety for that reason. It's also better for birds to have a variety of offerings and nutrition. And if you have better diversity, your native garden would be more stable and long-lasting.
Someone might just have access to a porch or a balcony. Is it possible to create a small pocket of prairie for birds when you have no yard?
Oh, definitely. A lot of people do that. One good way to do it is to get some big five-gallon jugs, make sure there's drainage, put a few rocks in it, and then potting soil. Then put in three to five plants.
When you choose plants, either for a larger garden or for a porch prairie, try to have plants that will blossom throughout the year, like spring, summer and fall. For example, for a sunny porch prairie, you could have a Silky Aster and Butterfly Weed — those would blossom and provide color and insects throughout the season. You could put in a few grasses too, such as Prairie Dropseed or Little Bluestem. Those are short grasses that would prop up those plants.
But if you have a shady porch, you could use Wild Geranium, Columbine and Zigzag Goldenrod — these plants would also blossom and produce insects and seeds through the season. That's great, because you'd have more of a continual native plant scene.
Chirp Chat’s Bird of the Month for March
“Blue birds are so gorgeous, and they usually come in masses as they're migrating around this time of year, mid-March,” Nowak says. “They have the sky on their back, that beautiful, stunning blue, and they have the earth on their breast, because they have an orange breast. Sometimes they're called the bird of happiness.”
