Attracting birds into your landscape can be easy if you know a little about what they like and their habits. Plants are a key part in many birds’ lives because they provide both materials and structure for shelter, and provide food with not only a multitude of fruits, nuts and seeds but also a source for insect eating birds.

Birds are highly visual and are attracted by brightly colored flowers; this is especially true of hummingbirds, so choose plants with red or orange (tubular) flowers to get them interested. The eating habits of birds vary widely. Small non-migratory birds eat almost constantly during daylight hours where as migratory birds need large amounts of food for a day or two.

Different plants have different resources to offer. Deciduous plants bear the most fruit, nuts and seeds. Evergreen plants and trees provide berries and seed-filled cones and can act as year-round shelters and nesting sites.

Here are some locally available plants that provide resources for birds in Seattle gardens:

Trees

Acer circinatum / Vine Maple – Provide seeds eaten by many birds

Crataegus douglasii / Black Hawthorne – Grows in a thicket, provides great shelter, berries eaten
by birds, robins, woodpeckers and ducks

Sorbus varieties / Mountain Ash – Provides shelter and berries in summer and fall

Shrubs

Cornus stolonifera / Red-Twig Dogwood – Provides nesting site, berries eaten by warblers, robins
and flycatchers

Ribes alpinum / Red Flowering Currant – Berries eaten by jays, sparrows, and woodpeckers,
nectar and color attractive to hummingbirds

Symphoricarpos albus / Snowberry – Berries persist into the winter, eaten regularly by quail and
grouse, emergency food for many others

Sambucus varieties / Red and Blue Elderberry – Red variety ripen in early summer, blue variety
ripen in fall, nectar for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies

Lonicera fragrantissima / Honeysuckle – Prolific flowers provide nectar for hummingbirds

Fuchsia varieties – Spring and summer food source for hummingbirds

Perennials

Aquilegia formosa / Red Columbine – Favorite native for hummingbirds, sparrows and finches
like seeds, very adaptable plant and showy flowers

Dicentra formosa / Western Bleeding Heart – Early spring source of nectar for hummingbirds

Crocosmia varieties / Montbretia – Summer food source for hummingbirds

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 8:33 am and is filed under Plant Information, Wildlife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.