How to Attract Songbirds and Wildlife

Provide Space for Living 
Just a bush or two and a few trees won’t do. Birds and wildlife need room to move about and enough variety in plant species to provide year-round food. This plan shows wildlife-friendly plantings in a larger lot. 

Provide Cover 
Birds and small animals need concealed places for nesting and hiding, protected from the eyes of predators. In a backyard setting, such places can be provided by. . . 

• Planting conifers (evergreens), preferably in a group. 
• Growing hedges with low branches. 
• Planting ground cover instead of lawn in several areas. 
• Planting shrubs and plants with overhanging branches. 
• Using prickly or thorny plants in a few areas. 

Provide Water 
No matter what their individual food preferences may be, all birds and animals need a dependable source of water close by. This can be supplied in your yard by creating a small pool or birdbath in a protected place. Even a dripping tap will help. 

Provide Food 
Having a wide variety of trees with high food value is the single best way to increase your pleasure from viewing wildlife. Champion wildlife feeders include: 

Summer Fruit 

• Cherries 
• Dogwoods 
• Plums 
• Apricots 

Seeds

• Ashes 
• Birches 
• Firs 
• Hemlock 
• Maples 
• Spruces 
• Sweetgum 

Nuts & Acorns 

• Butternut 
• Black Walnut 
• Chestnuts 
• Hazels 
• Hickories 
• Oaks 
• Pecans 

Fall & Winter Fruit These are especially important to help wildlife through the worst part of the year and to save early-arriving summer birds that get caught in late-season snowstorms. 

• Apples 
• Crabapples 
• Dogwoods 
• Hackberry 
• Hawthorns 
• Mountain Ash 

Create Variety 
Good natural habitat features variety — in plant species, in slopes and terrain, in plant height, and in transition between plant communities.