Attracting beautiful birds to your yard

Bird houses and feeders are a wonderful way to decorate your yard and garden. They can add a unique touch of whimsy to your property while attracting beautiful birds that bring your yard garden to life with splashes of color and nature’s music. Attracting birds to your backyard with bird houses and feeding them is an easy way to enjoy wildlife up close and personal. Feeders, and the beautiful birds that perch upon them, can brighten up any garden or yard.

North American birds like Finches, swallows, wrens, and others make their nests in tree hollows and other sheltered environments. This makes cedar bird houses an ideal location during nesting season. Bird houses carry another great benefit: the chance for young and old alike to watch the life cycle and development of the young birds. Birdhouses are popular gifts for year round and are a natural gift for life.

Bird feeders as well are uplifting, relaxing and entertaining. There are many types of birds that have become well-adapted to taking advantage of bird feeders. In fact, according to the National Audubon Society, more than 100 species supplement their natural diets with birdseed, suet, fruit and nectar obtained from feeders. There are a wide variety of feeders to accommodate this wide variety of birds: hopper feeders, platform feeders, tube feeders, suet feeders, Hummingbird feeders; and the list goes on. The birds you desire to feed will determine the type of food you put out and that in turn helps to determine which feeder you should use.

Some feeders work well for a number of different types of food. Hopper feeders and platform feeders are big and bird-friendly. They can hold almost any size seed and a lot of it, so they have to be refilled less often. Hopper bird feeders accommodate several feeding birds at the same time and are attractive to a number of species, such as grosbeaks, cardinals, jays, woodpeckers, finches, chickadees, sparrows and nuthatches. The biggest drawback is because of their open trays, there is substantial spillage. Hopper feeders are a great choice for general feeding. The difference between this type of feeder and a platform-style is the addition of a seed hopper. Hopper feeders come in a wide range of styles and sizes. The miniature barn design is the more traditional hopper feeder style, and with this type of feeder you don’t have to refill it daily because it holds a huge store of seeds.

Tube feeders are ideal for smaller birds like finches and pine siskins because they have small perches that large perching birds like starlings can't grip. Tube feeders are extremely popular and come with feeding ports or holes where the birds access the food. These ports can vary in size in order to accommodate different types of food. A tube feeder with large holes will let sunflower seeds and fruit pieces through, while others with small holes should be used for small seeds like Nyjer.

Suet feeders, which are wire cages specifically made to hold suet, are an excellent way to offer your outdoor pets a variety of dining options. Suet is the hard, white fat on the kidneys and loins of cattle and other animals, and is a favorite of many birds. If it were up to the birds, they would take the entire piece of suet away with them. Thankfully, the suet feeder cage design only allows small chunks to be eaten at a time, which means that desirable birds such as woodpeckers, cardinals, chickadees, wrens, and nuthatches visit more often -- so you get more time to enjoy watching them.

Hummingbird feeders are available in a number of shapes and sizes and are perfect for homeowners looking to attract these cute little creatures. Hummingbird feeders, in particular, are often placed near windows because the tiny, acrobatic birds are fun to watch. Hummingbird feeders, rather than dispensing seed, supply liquid nourishment to hummingbirds, in the form of a sweet mixture often colored red to attract the birds, but this is unnecessary and the food coloring may in fact be detrimental to the health of the birds.

There are a number of helpful resources today that can help you pick out the appropriate types of food needed to attract desirable birds, and the feeders that suit them best. In fact, Web sites such as www.WildDelight.com are becoming a popular reference point for outdoor pet lovers.

Wood is the preferred material for birdhouses and feeders. Western Red cedar, known for it’s longevity in exterior applications, is a primary construction material used in these wood birdhouses and feeders. The elasticity and natural oils found in western red cedar makes it durable to variations in outside temperature and humidity which ensures they will last a lifetime.

Finally, with all the different types and styles of feeders available today, there have never been more opportunities to enjoy outdoor pets and the entertaining hobby of backyard bird feeding.