A Garden for the Birds


Many gardeners find that they love the birds that are attracted to their garden. They're fun to watch and and who doesn't enjoy a good bird song from time to time. You can create your own backyard bird sanctuary with tips from the following Web sites.

Bird Gardens at Bird Watcher's Digest provides all the essentials. You'll find information on the four basic all birds need, a list of their top 10 plants, plus a backyard bird food chart and do-it-yourself projects. An added bonus is information on attracting butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden as well. Not only does this Web site have relevant information for Florida gardeners but it is easy to browse and find the information you are searching for.

A Web site with information geared specifically for Florida can be found at Your Florida Backyard on their Gardening for Birds page. You'll find lists of flowers, shrubs and trees that provide fruits, berries, nectar, nuts or seeds for some of Florida's most common birds.

If, like me, you enjoy flipping through books at your leisure here are two specifically for Florida. For beautiful photos you'll love Florida's Fabulous Birds by Winston Williams. I love their entire series of Florida nature books. A more practical book to take in the garden with you is the Birds of Florida Field Guide by Stan Tekiela. A must have for those who like to identify the birds in their backyard.

And last, but not least, you can learn to identify the birds by their songs by listening to a short clip of Florida Bird Sounds at the Florida Museum of Natural History Web site. My daughter loves to listen to the bird songs, and has become quite good at copying them.