Feather Blossoms: Cultivating Your Bird Garden
Susan Glass
When I was a very small child, too young even to attend nursery school, I invented my own laws about how the universe worked, as the following poem excerpt attests:
Theology At 3
sun can't rise
till juncos trill
can't crest till
swallows coax
it over mountains:
zoom!
Won't set
without doves floating
its arms down
sooth cooing
its shoulders west.
West is bed,
and night
is snow, is
owl, is,
sunburn and cicada.
Bees taste
bitter
sometimes flowers bite
they grow
hummingbirds.
This scrambling of sensory information may have arisen with my blindness; I honestly don't know. But back then I was certain that bird song and wings gave the sun permission to rise, while companion doves put it to bed each night. Flowers did sometimes buzz and bite, as well as give birth to hummingbirds. Now I'm an adult, and of course know a little more about how the natural world works. But my love for birds and song scapes and gardens persists. My favorite gardens are those that grow as many birds as they do flowers and herbs and vegetables. Those of us who are visually impaired and blind can become expert bird gardeners, and in so doing, fill our days and nights with sound.
Here are a few tips for getting started. When I mention specific birds, I'll concentrate on those you are likely to hear in most regions of California. In the next issue of the BC, I will provide a Birding By Ear resource list.
The 3 Basic Needs
All birds need 3 things in order to thrive: food, water, and shelter. Your bird garden should provide all 3. Natural shelters include tree tops, holes in tree trunks or other hollow spaces, holes in the ground, tall grass and brush, or thick hedges. Artificial but still excellent shelters are nest boxes, hanging baskets, empty planters, or even the eaves under your roof. I've heard of birds nesting in chimneys, drain pipes, even old abandoned car tires.
We typically think "seed" when we're envisioning bird food, and it's true that many birds eat lots of seeds, whether found in a natural environment or artificially provided. They also eat many varieties of berries and other fruit, nectar, insects, and spiders. The more birds you attract, the less insect pests you'll have. Some birds, (hawks and falcons), do eat other birds, and some bird species (jays and crows) occasionally steal eggs from the nests of other birds. Several bird species pick insects from leaves and tree trunks. They hunt for grubs in leaf litter. They pull earth worms from lawns. They drill trees for sap.
Water! I can't say enough about its importance to birds. Even desert birds need it, and they'll drink it from cacti. Urban and suburban birds work hard to find water in which to bathe and drink, and the water they find isn't necessarily clean. They sip it from off wet leaves that your sprinkler has sprayed. They bathe in puddles and in gutters. Hummingbirds sometimes bathe by flying into sprinkler mists.
Setting Up Your Bird Garden
You can easily start your bird garden on a deck or patio as well as in a yard. If you're starting it in a yard, don't make the garden space too tidy. Don't, for instance, over rake, picking up every last leaf and twig. Birds forage among leaves and twigs; that's where the bugs live. If you're lucky enough to have a dead tree stump on your premises, consider leaving it in place. It's a great home for snakes, spiders and insects, all of which are attractive to birds. A bird may also nest in the stump if it's hollow, or it may store nuts there. If you're gardening within the confines of a patio or balcony, leave a little plant debris around on the ground and in your containers. I'm not suggesting that you leave an awful mess, just that you leave enough for your birds to forage in and explore.
Because birds feed and forage at different heights, it's a good idea to grow plants of different heights and sizes. Visually this is also pleasing as it creates symmetry. You might for instance, have a tall oak tree growing in one part of your garden. Nearby is a small potted lemon tree. Near to that is a hedge of privet, or a Butterfly Bush. Perhaps a jasmine vine is climbing your fence, and next to that, you've hung a basket with a fuchsia plant inside. Consider alyssum and/or spreading rosemary for ground cover, sunflowers and hollyhocks for height and color. Plant some herbs too: parsley, basil, thyme. Now here come the birds: Anna's Hummingbirds will drink from the nectar produced by your fuchsia and Butterfly bush. House finches will pull seeds from your sunflowers. Brown towhees and spotted towhees will land in your oak tree and forage in your rosemary. If you plant thistle or bottlebrush, you'll likely be visited by lesser goldfinches. If there's a lawn nearby, plan on hearing American robins "peep" and "yeekyeek pip pip" as they hunt for worms. They'll also sing their hearts out in summer; they are our most ubiquitous thrush species.
You can also bring birds to your garden with feeders. Place a wooden box feeder (called a hopper) on a fence and fill it with Patio Mix seed blend. This is a blend of already husked seed, which means that when the birds eat, they don't leave seed shells all over your garden. Patio Mix contains crushed peanuts, corn, flax, and sometimes millet and sunflower seed. You can devote another feeder entirely to black sunflower feed, which will attract most finches as well as mourning doves. A long cylindrical finch feeder filled with Niger or thistle seed will bring goldfinches. A hummingbird feeder with sugar water will draw hummers, but don't add food coloring to the mix because it's poisonous to the hummingbirds.
Remember to add a bird bath to your garden. Many commercial bird bath containers are available, but you can make one simply by filling a Pyrex dish or large bowl with water, and placing it on a patio table. Clean and refill the bath every day so your birds don't get sick from feces or bacteria. Replenishing the water every day will also prevent mosquitos from laying eggs in the bath, which when hatched, lead to big, biting trouble.
Especially during periods of hot weather, birds enjoy dust baths. Dust rids feathers of bugs, and also shines them. If there's not a corner of natural powdery dirt in your garden, create one in a bowl.
If you have ample vegetation surrounding your garden, birds will nest and shelter there. But you can also purchase various bird houses (now called nest boxes). Each box has a hole cut in it through which birds can enter and exit. The holes are sized for the species of bird, small holes for chickadees, larger holes for wood peckers. One morning I heard a drumming on one of my nest boxes, and when I investigated, I discovered a Nuttal's Woodpecker enlarging the hole. The real estate, it seemed, needed improvement.
Why Birds
Because as a blind person, they allow my garden to bloom every day and season with musical surprises. Full and long Bewick's Wren songs proclaim spring even before it arrives, while mournful Golden Crowned Sparrows announce a three-note, descending autumn in October. Because echoing bird song tells me that I'm walking among tall buildings, or am standing in a woodland. Because Western Meadowlarks singing in a field allow me to hear sky and distance. Because American Dippers say that a stream is nearby, while Barn Swallows say eaves, and House Sparrows suggest outdoor cafes and dropped crumbs. Because when you say Taos New Mexico, I recall Common ravens and a conversation with a Navajo gentleman outside a tiny jewelry store. Because each time I hear a bird in my garden, I think of the places where it's been and where it may soon go, and if it's a migratory bird like the Golden Crowned Sparrow, I think of Alaska wind tucked beneath its primary feathers, and the invisible imprint on its feet, of a willow branch on which it perched 3 days ago.
Backyard BIRDS You Are Most Likely To Hear This Summer
1. American Robin
2. House Finch
3. Lesser Goldfinch
4. Northern Mockingbird
5. Brown Towhee
6. Spotted Towhee
7. Bewick's Wren
8. Mourning Dove
10. Song Sparrow
11. Eurasian Collar Dove
12. Barn Owl.
We can't attach recordings of all these birds to the BC, but will send a few, and they'll be labeled so you'll know who you are hearing. Please let me know if you'd like me to write any additional articles on birds, birding by ear, using birdsong to identify habitat, birds as environmental indicators.
{Editor's note: Below are two recordings of bird songs:
