Author: Falyn Owens
Here’s a hot take. Everyone knows that a bird feeder attracts birds to your yard, but did you know that you can turn your yard itself into the ultimate bird feeder? Just think - unlimited free refills that can also support a ton of amazing birds. The secret is simple: native plants!
Native plants are the original bird feeders, providing all the food that has kept birds fed and thriving since long before people came into the picture. Native plants offer seeds and berries, and crucially, support healthy insect populations. Most of North Carolina’s songbird species (a whopping 2 out of 3!) don’t eat seeds at all; instead, they rely on insects as their main food source. Even our familiar feeder birds like cardinals, goldfinches, and titmice eat insects instead of seeds when they’re young, so bird feeders offer nothing to support them. Baby birds need a steady supply of soft-bodied insects (e.g., caterpillars) to grow and thrive. By adding native plants to your yard, you can provide the foods that support birds of all ages, year-round, as well as offering the shelter they need to build nests and for young birds to learn how to fly!
Grow your own birdseed
Refilling bird feeders gets expensive, and if you don’t sanitize them regularly, they can spread diseases such as salmonellosis, bird pox and avian conjunctivitis. Bird feeders are also notorious for attracting wildlife you or your neighbors may not want hanging around, like raccoons, rats, squirrels and bears. And if you’re concerned about your carbon footprint, be aware that almost all store-bought birdseed is grown in the Midwest and Canada and shipped to the Southeast.
Birds thrive on the seeds, berries and insects produced by native plants, many of which are attractive additions to a backyard garden. North Carolina is home to no less than 29 different species of native sunflowers, who’s mature seedheads provide a veritable feast for songbirds. Natives such as black-eyed Susans, purple coneflowers, and our diverse asters provide nourishing seeds as well as a variety of colorful blooms. If you’ve never seen a flock of goldfinches flitting and dancing among the dried seedheads of your native flower garden, well, you’re missing out on something wonderful!
Host plants for baby birds, butterflies and more
When we manage for sterile, “pest-free” landscaping, we lose the natural foods birds need to raise healthy young, and so we lose adult birds too. Baby birds need bugs and bugs need plants. Sure, some moths and butterflies drink nectar as adults, but often their own young can only eat the leaves of certain native plants. The most well-known example of this relationship is monarchs and milkweed, but many other species have similar partnerships, like pipevine swallowtails (pipevine), yucca moths (Adam’s needle) and zebra swallowtails (paw paw) to name just a few.
Each type of native plant we add to our yard invites another kind of pollinator to raise their young there, which means another baby bird gets fed. Some native plants are super hosts, providing nourishment for a wide variety of pollinators. Chief among these are trees - our native oaks, wild cherry, native willow, birch and maple. Among the wildflowers, goldenrods (Solidago sp.), asters (Symphyotrichum sp.) and sunflowers (Helianthus sp.) steal the show.
Of the songbirds that eat insects as adults, warblers, vireos, thrushes and flycatchers - some of the most colorful and arguably most beautiful birds around – solely rely on insects and other soft-bodied invertebrates for food. Rather than watching a bird feeder, try going outside and looking up into an oak or wild cherry tree. You’re likely to spy a tiny warbler flitting among the leaves, carefully inspecting each surface for a juicy caterpillar. Watch the tree trunks and you may see a wren, nuthatch or Brown Creeper hopping from crevice to crevice looking for a tasty spider snack. The world is alive with foraging birds wherever native plants and the insects they support are plentiful.
A little something sweet – nectar and berries
Let’s talk nectar sources. Hummingbirds feed on plants with red, orange or yellow tube-shaped flowers. Natives such as coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), sundrops, crossvine and wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) are excellent substitutes for a hummingbird feeder and don’t carry the same risk of harmful bacteria or fungal growth. If you have room in your yard for one, our native tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) is a favorite for hummingbirds and is also the only host plant for the spectacular tulip-tree silk moth! Just remember that like pollinators, hummingbirds need a variety of plants that bloom at different times during the growing season, so the more kinds of nectar plants you grow, the better!
Beyond nectar, birds such as Cedar Waxwings have a penchant for berries. These almost unbelievably gorgeous birds look like they came right out of a fantasy painting, including tiny drops of real wax on their wing feathers. Waxwings mostly eat berries, so native plants such as serviceberry, mulberry, dogwood, and cedar are good choices to attract them. Another group of berry specialists is our triumvirate of song mimics: the Northern Mockingbird, Gray Catbird, and Brown Thrasher, which learn the songs of other birds for their varied repertoire. As a rule, berry-eating birds all switch to protein-rich insects during the summer - yet another reason to invite the insects if you want to bring the birds!
I’ll leave you with a parting thought to ponder. Most of us have heard the proverb: Give a man a fish to feed him for a day but teach him how to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime. If we encourage our yards to be living, growing bird feeders, we give our songbirds the wonderful chance to feed themselves, the way nature intended!
Additional Resources
- Learn what plants support birds at NC Audubon’s Native Plants for Birds
- Find native plant nurseries on the NC Native Plant Society’s Native Plant Nursery Map