If you’ve never considered the benefits of attracting birds to your yard, you may be missing out! Having birds visit your garden and backyard space is more entertaining and enjoyable than you may think. Not only that, but there are many benefits of creating a backyard oasis for birds — both for your garden and the environment.
I never really paid much attention to birds until a few years ago when I decided to buy my first bird feeder. When visiting my parents’ house, I noticed how pleasant it was to watch all of the birds come to their feeders and hear them chirping outside. I went home and purchased my first bird feeder, and soon after, also purchased a bird bath for a water source for them. I’ve also been gradually incorporating more native Colorado plants to encourage birds to find their way to my garden.
The enjoyment I get from seeing birds flock to my outdoor space is something I never really anticipated. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find them lifting my spirits as I watch them stop by my backyard. In the process of creating my garden, I began learning about what birds can do for our home ecosystems and will share a few benefits of attracting wild birds here.
Birds Help with Plant Pollination
While honey bees are the most important species in plant pollination, birds play a role in it too. Hummingbirds are probably the first birds that come to mind when thinking of a bird pollinating flowering plants. Their long beaks pick up the fine specks of pollen as they drink nectar from flowers. When they move to the next flower, this pollen transfers to the other plants they visit.
But other species of birds can help with pollination, too, especially when landing on wildflowers. When a bird lands on a flowering plant like a wildflower, sticky pollen can attach to its feathers. They land on the next flower and some of this pollen may shake off on other flowers helping with pollination.
Birds Control Weeds in Your Garden
Seed eating birds also eat — guess what — weed seeds! Birds like doves, sparrows, meadow larks, and finches will eat weed seeds both from the ground and right off the plant. So while this may not remove the existing weeds in your yard, it will help by reducing the number future weeds that spread and grow in your garden. I’ll take any help I can get controlling weeds. So birds are welcome to feast on my weeds any day of the week!
Attracting Birds to Your Yard Helps Control Insects
After that visit to my parents’ home where I enjoyed the birds at their feeders, I realized I had a second motive for wanting to attract birds to my backyard: We had an earwig problem. For those of you who don’t know what an earwig is, consider yourselves “#blessed”! They are a prehistoric looking, long bodied bug with pinchers (also referred to as “pincher bugs”) and they were everywhere in our Denver vegetable garden and lawn each summer for years. Earwigs give me the heebie-jeebies. And while I’m sure they have some glorious role in the food chain of insects, I’d rather not have them popping up so much before my eyes. I wondered if attracting birds to my yard might help with my earwig problem.
Well, come to find out, many birds (sparrows, chickadees, wrens, swallows and cardinals, to name a few) all eat earwigs among other bugs. I researched and found a bird seed mix that attracted a few of these types of birds and began using it in my bird feeder. While I don’t have any scientific evidence that my earwig population was reduced, I can say that in the three years I’ve been feeding birds, the earwig population in my backyard is noticeably less. And I’m certain it’s because I started feeding and attracting birds to my garden.
Birds also will eat many other types of insects like ants, beetles, spiders, mosquitoes, gnats and aphids. In my opinion, controlling insect populations is one of the greatest benefits of attracting birds to your yard.
Bird are Good for Our Environment
We should care deeply about birds’ impact on our environment as they are a crucial part of our existence. Birds make important contributions to habitats all over the world. Their droppings spread nutrients and act as fertilizer. They transport seeds which keep forests healthy, and they control insect populations. Creating an environment in your backyard that supports bird life — whether that be by providing bird feeders, a water source, or bird-friendly plantings and trees — can help create a thriving habitat for them.
Humans have taken over so much of the land that birds once had, so it’s important to do what we can in our own backyards to provide an oasis for them. Being deliberate in creating bird habitats in our gardens is an important part of bird wildlife conservation. Creating gardens with plants and shelters that attract wild bird life will also attract equally essential bees and butterflies. If we all could implement a “less lawn, more native plantings” approach to our gardens, we’d be doing wonders for all of our winged friends. In doing so, you’ll start to notice the little ecosystem that you created buzzing along in your own backyard!
Seeing & Hearing Birds in Your Backyard is Enjoyable
Out of all the benefits of attracting birds to your yard, the mood boost you get from seeing and hearing wild birds visiting is my most favorite benefit of all. (Yes, this one even tops less earwigs in my yard)!
There is nothing like the sound of song birds singing all around your garden when you wake up in the morning. Seeing them flying around and splashing in bird baths is surprisingly entertaining and relaxing to watch. Interacting with birds and watching them provides stress relief and promotes well-being. And it’s really just the icing on the cake for everything else they can do for our gardens.
