Bird Friendly Homes
Published on February 22, 2017
Many people love birds and try to their best to help them out. This often takes the form of providing bird feeders, but there are much better ways. Planting native plants actually provides much better food (and cover) than setting out seeds. Since 97% of our terrestrial birds (and all our bats by the way) feed on insects, and native plants result in over 4 times the number of insects, this is truly best way to provide nourishment. Indeed, experiments done locally have shown that yards with nonnative plants cannot support as many birds even with bird feeders around. Baby birds have been found in yards landscaped with nonnative plants dying with crops full of seed, since what they really need is the protein and other nutrients insects and other invertebrates provide. Even birds such as hummingbirds and finches which are known to feed on nectar and seeds respectively need to have insects to feed their young. They cannot fledge successfully without them.
Insects, specially caterpillars which feed on native plants, make up 97% of the food for terrestrial birds, particularly while young. Look at how many caterpillars this Common Grackle is taking back to feed its young.
But there are many other ways to make your homes more bird friendly. Some are quite obvious such as keeping cats indoors for the protection of both the pet and birds. But another way to make your yard safer for birds is to try and keep birds from colliding with windows.
According to the American Bird Conservancy, bird collisions resulted in deaths estimated at between 300 million to 1 billion in 2013 in the USA alone, second only to cats as far as anthropogenic threats. While much has been written about birds crashing into tall buildings at night or from wind turbines, this isn’t the most common manner of avian strikes. About half of all collisions are due to home windows, with the peak occurring during Fall migration and during the day. This is due to the large amount of glass found in houses that is present low to the ground where vegetation grows. Add bird feeders and unfamiliarity with the habitat while migrating and you have a recipe for window strikes. Something as simple as having window screening would go far in reducing fatalities due to less reflection and a buffering effect.
Silhouettes or decorations of almost any kind can help make birds aware of glass windows, specially if placed 4 or so inches from each other.
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