Attracting Birds
Attracting birds to your garden and yards can be done by placing out feeders, seeded bells and fat blocks filled with fruit and nuts, also by placing scrap bread and cheese. You must remember that the birds also will need water year around.
As food becomes more scarce more of us are putting out feeders and attracting birds, but it important to put the right food out for attracting birds. By feeding our feathered friends we can draw many different types of birds to our yards.
There is a number of ways for attracting birds, plants, trees and shrubs that provide fruit and berries along with protection from the whether, these shrubs and plants will also attract insects another type of food for birds.
Nyjer and Thistle Seed – 5 lb.
A great way for attracting birds to our garden is the use of Bird feeders and tables, a table is one of the most common ways of attracting birds. By placing scraps of bread, fats, cheese, bacon, and fresh fruit or dried fruits out, but avoid meats and vegetables because these are hard for birds to digest. By using this type of feeder you will have to clean it each day to prevent disease, and be sure to clean up around the table or you might have uninvited guests, rats and unwanted other animals.
There are many different types of bird feeders for attracting birds of all kinds, these are all available on line. They are designed for holding a variety of feed for wild birds, that include nuts, seeds, and containers to hold fat balls, seeded bells and fruit and nut filled fat blocks. Some are made to keep the squirrels out and for attracting birds of many varieties to your garden and yard.
If you feed nuts to the birds it is best to crush them so the baby birds won’t choke on them.
Berry Treat Suet
You will find many suppliers sell ready to use fat balls and fat blocks filled with fruit, seeds, and nuts with vitamins and minerals added, ready to put in feeders or hang from trees. You will also find suppliers offer many different blends of feed for attracting birds of all types. Other ways to feed your friends is to place toast with peanut butter and jelly out, fresh fruits, cut oranges topped with jelly, sliced apples, and grapes. It is also important to have water out particularly during winter months. This can be done with a bird bath with a heater to keep the water warm and from freezing.
Once you start placing feeders out it may take a few weeks for the birds to start coming, you must than keep the feeders well stocked as the birds will be looking for the food.
Attracting birds of variety will depend on the types of feed and fruit placed out, if done right your garden and yard will be filled with color not only from your flowers.
Plants that Attract Butterflies
Attracting butterflies and watching the float throw the air and flutter from flower to flower Is enough to lift your spirits, and give you the feeling of great accomplishment for the garden you have grown.
A butterfly garden can be grown on a patio, but will also attract wild birds, if done in the yard with the needs of butterflies and birds you will be attracting butterflies that are common in your area. Butterflies are attracted to bright colors, pinks, yellows, orange, red, etc.
Because of the gardeners love for flowers, plants and love of attracting butterflies and birds, this has helped the three stages of butterfly transformations take place. The egg, caterpillar, crysallis to become a butterfly. It takes about six weeks , the female lays eggs on a host plant which is then eaten by the young caterpillars when they hatch. The caterpillar then attaches it self to the stem of the plant as a crysallis and becomes a butterfly.
See your local field guide to find what butterflies are in your area and what plants they like to have as a host plant. This is important if you want to be attracting butterflies to lay eggs in your garden, So there will be more of them in weeks to come.
Landscaping and planning a garden for attracting butterflies is not hard, butterflies like wild birds like edges and layers in their habitat. Low flowers at the edge of the lawn and high flowers at the edge of trees. Sun is very important to butterflies to warm their bodies temperature. Butterflies will rest on flat stones or bare ground to sun themselves to raise their body temperature high enough to fly, be sure you place flat stones in your garden you are planting for attracting butterflies.
Butterflies will appreciate wind breaks as they try to avoid high winds, if your garden offers no shelter,tall plants, shrubs, trellised vine you will not be attracting butterflies to your garden nor will they stay there.
Native wildflowers are a great draw, they provide special nectar and larval food source for butterflies. Ripe fruit is great for attracting butterflies as it is in attracting wild birds.
Butterflies often puddle, gather at muddy places in the garden, to get soil salts and minerals along with moisture. You can create a place for them to gather with a shallow container filled with builders sand and fine gravel and a little compost.
A bird bath with flat stones provide a safe drinking spot, the stones should be up out of the water allowing butterflies to rest, and drink without getting wet.
Attracting butterflies to your garden and yard along with wild birds through planting of plants and flowers and providing for their needs, will bring great pleasure and happiness to your home.
Bushes For Butterflies
Butter fly gardens are important to help conserve the habitat of butterflies due to the development of roads and housing, causing the loss of many wild flowers and wet lands needed for butterflies to survive.
Different butterflies prefer different nectar both in color and flavor. Planting a variety of plants will give butterflies the greatest diversity. Stagger wild flowers along with cultivated plants, plant for different blooming times of the day and of the year. Plant in groups making it easier for butterflies to see.
You also can attract butterflies to your yard buy offering female butterflies a place to lay
their eggs. Some female butterflies are more fussy about what plant they will lay their eggs than others.
After the caterpillars come out you will notice some are hairy or have a forked spine, that may or may not sting, most of the time the hair is just for show. So just in case it is wise to wear gloves if you need to handle the caterpillars, This may need to be done if you notice the caterpillars are eating excessive foliage from a prominent part of the plant. You can then move them to the rear or less noticeable portion of the plant.
Butterflies are cold blooded and cannot regulate their body temperature, butterflies will bask in sunlight when it is warm out, and very few will be seen on a cool cloudy day. Leave and open space with flat stones for butterflies to warm themselves. Also have partly shaded areas as trees and shrubs so they can hide on cool and cloudy days.
Butterflies like small puddles, the males will congregate at small rain pools. You can
supply small permanent puddles by burying a small bucket to the rim and filling it with sand and small pebbles, then pouring in liquids as soda, cool-aid, or just plan water. They also will be attracted to over ripe fruit that is allowed to sit out a few days.
Adult butterflies feed throw a coiled tube which straightens out when blood is forced into the tube allowing butterflies to feed on liquids, they take all their food throw this tube limiting them to nectar and standing water. Butterflies have large rounded compound eyes which allows them to see in all directions with out turning their heads, they are near sighted which makes them more attracted to large stands of flowers than single flowers. They don’t see red very well but see polarized light as well as ultraviolet light, which is present on many flowers and guides them to the nectar.