How can you actually make your own Garden for birds design? If you're looking for tips for a bird-friendly garden paradise, you've come to the right place. What could be more soothing than lying in a hammock and listening to the birds chirping in your own greenery? Simply wonderful! But to do this, you have to get away from the pure rock garden, away from smoothly mown green spaces. And towards a garden close to nature.
Find out how this works and how you can make your garden bird-friendly in this article.
Notice: You don't have to implement all the tips at once. Think of the design of your garden as a step-by-step process and not as a rush job. By the way, you can get even more input for a fundamentally environmentally friendly garden in the article on the sustainable garden design.
What do birds actually need in the garden?
Location, location, location! That's what birds think when choosing a location. But in order to make our garden bird-friendly, we should first find out what our feathered friends actually like 😉.
Here are a few things that are essential in the lives of birds:
- Food source: Birds need natural food sources and nothing from a can! Seeds, fruit, worms, spiders and insects! However, this natural food only comes if it can find food itself in your garden.
- Drinking water source: Ponds, rivers, lakes - or even a simple and regularly filled water bowl. Birds like to make themselves comfortable where they can find drinking water.
- Shelter: Whether stone walls, roofs, trees, shrubs, hedges or birdhouses - birds need permanent shelter for breeding and protection from predators such as martens or cats.
- Care options: Just like us, birds clean themselves regularly. This is important against diseases. A bird-friendly garden therefore also offers them the chance to clean themselves.
- Nest building material: Birds can hardly find nesting material in a pure, paved rock garden. A garden for birds should therefore also offer them shrubs, small branches and the like.
- Seating options: Whether for mating, singing or simply as a vantage point for hunting insects. Birds also need a vantage point in your garden.
Consider this information as a preliminary brainstorming session so that you can adapt the following tips and your own ideas at any time.
15 tips for a bird-friendly garden
Now that you know roughly what birds need, we can move on to the practical tips for bird-friendly garden design. Implement the following ideas one by one to make it even easier for birds to decide to settle in your own garden.
1. create compost heap
If birds can't get enough to eat in your garden, they will fly on. However, a compost heap attracts lots of microorganisms such as worms, beetles, midges and spiders, which provide a tasty food source for birds. You can find out more at Create compost correctly.
2. plant trees and protective hedges
Plant trees, hedges and shrubs where birds can find food and shelter. A near-natural garden should have corners and edges and does not have to be laid out accurately according to "German neatness".
These are particularly recommended for a garden with birds:
- Rowanberry (red rowan is eaten by many species of birds).
- Hawthorn (loved by hundreds of species of insects).
- Flourberry (with flowers and berries)
- Firethorn (with flowers and protective thorns)
- Red honeysuckle (blooms in spring)
- Rock pear (fruits and flowers)
- Peacock coneflower (fruits and flowers)
- …
Can you think of any other bird-friendly plants? Then simply write me a comment with the corresponding reason.
3. provide birds with a permanent source of water
Birds and their food supply need water. With a garden pond, you are definitely providing a good basis for ensuring that our feathered friends have a safe source of drinking water and can also bathe regularly.
But it is also best to build birds a small "Swimming pool" from a shallow clay bowl that you hang from a tree. But put a stone in it so that the birds can get out again easily.
Tip: As transparent panes cannot be perceived as an obstacle by the animals, it often happens that Birds flying against windows. I explain what you can do about this in the linked blog post.
4. talk to your neighbors
Your little patch of greenery looks pretty uninteresting for birds if there are only flat, lifeless rock gardens around it with no food sources. That's why it might be worth talking to your neighbors and showing them the Making advantages of a garden with birdsong palatable. You can also forward them this article with tips for a bird-friendly garden!
5. plant insect friendly flowers
In addition to insect-friendly trees and hedges, such as hawthorn, a lively garden also needsildflower meadows, perennials, summer flowers or Climbing plants.
Here are some plants that attract many insects:
- Globe Flower
- Dog Rose
- Meadow Sage
- Sweet Clover
- Ribwort
- Common Catchfly
- Turk's cap lily
- …
Can you think of any other insect-friendly plants? Then just write me a comment again!
6. give free rein to the wildflower meadow
A few wild corners make your garden especially insect- and thus bird-friendly. Let nature take its course and do not maintain everything super neat. Foreign cultivated roses do not bring so much. Native wildflowers on the other hand, attract insects and birds. The rule is: the wilder, the closer to nature, the better!
Even flowering weeds can be left to grow. Let go of the thought of "what your neighbors might think of your garden". In the end, you are simply the pioneer in your neighborhood.
7. provide food for birds all year round
Birds need food if they are to feel at home in your garden.
Natural food sources such as fruit-bearing shrubs like rowanberries or black elderberry, as well as insect-friendly plants like hawthorn or rose hedges are very helpful.
But especially in winter, the buffet for birds is not as rich as in the warmer months. Therefore, offer them Soft lining (e.g. for robins and starlings) and Grain feed (e.g. for siskins and sparrows). It is best to avoid plastic nets, in which birds can become dangerously entangled. Buy or build yourself a Bird feeder spiral for metal dumplings.
If you offer birds food on a permanent basis, they will also join you in the fight against pests. Win-win!
Tip: Do you already know how Feeding hedgehogs correctly? For example, you are not allowed to drink milk. You can find out more in the linked article.
8. offer piles of leaves and dead wood
"Chaos is welcome, order has failed." - this also applies to a bird-friendly garden! You can leave piles of leaves in the garden a little longer, as they Shelter for hedgehogs, but also for many small animals that are a food source for birds.
Also dead wood piles from old tree trunks and thicker branches are useful. Wrens and wagtails, for example, like to breed in them.
9. keep your hands off pesticides!
Pesticides are pure poison. Not only for insects, but also for the animals that eat them. With pesticides, you are ultimately also affecting the health of birds.
Let the birds you attract help you in your fight against pests! The great tit, for example, really likes aphids! Birds are your allies - you just have to give them the chance.
Tip: I have written a separate article about Animal welfare in everyday life in which you can find out how else you can help animals. Feel free to take a look!
10. design the garden soil with different height levels
A small hollow with soft sand for sand bathing offers many birds a place to groom themselves. Different height levels also create Sometimes somewhat cooler, shadier and sometimes sunnier, warmer regions in the garden. This gives birds and of course many other animals the chance to make themselves comfortable at their preferred temperatures.
11. create perches for birds
A bird-friendly garden also offers the peeps a "stage". For example, for mating and singing. But also, of course, to get an overview for foraging. For this, they need self-built or natural perches such as Trellises, fences or posts. In an ideal garden for birds, you should be able to find such perches. A high pile of deadwood, as shown in the picture, can also help.
12. keep a domestic cat or no cat
Cats are an enemy of birds. Even if this sounds sad for cat lovers, in a bird-friendly garden there should ideally be no cats sneaking around at all. Of course, this cannot be completely avoided. That's why birdhouses should have metal protection against predators such as cats.
If you want to keep a cat, it should ideally be a house cat to protect birds.
13. create opportunities for a water and sand bath
Birds need to be able to clean themselves. Above all, they need the chance to Water bath. Ideally, it should be positioned so that cats and other bird predators cannot sneak in quietly and secretly. Also make sure that you clean it daily to prevent diseases among the birds.
As mentioned earlier, you should also offer a small hollow with soft sand in your bird-friendly garden. Titmice and sparrows, for example, love to cover their plumage with a Sand bath from annoying parasites.
14. build a home for birds
If the natural environment in your garden doesn't yet offer quite as many nesting opportunities for birds, you can provide them with a purchased or self-built nesting box. Brood or also for the warm Hibernation help out. Don't give predators such as martens or cats a chance by attaching a metal guard to the round entrance.
Tip: Ideally, birdhouses should be placed where the birds can find food directly. For example, a few meters above a wildflower meadow.
15. offer birds diversity
The larger and more diverse your garden is, the more micro-habitats it will create. The more micro-habitats there are, the richer the food supply for birds. This is quite simple.
However, as you have already learned in the "What do birds need?" section, you should also provide birds with drinking water, shelter, seating and care options, as well as nesting material. Make sure you provide a healthy and balanced range in this respect. The closer to nature, the more birdsong you will be able to enjoy.
Creating a garden for birds - easy, right?
Implementing the tips is really quite straightforward, don't you think? Once you have implemented them, you can simply let nature take its course. By the way, these measures will help you species extinction that we are currently observing. Fortunately, in your garden you have it in your own hands to provide animals and plants with a basis for life.
Do you have any questions or suggestions about this article on bird-friendly garden design? Then just write me a comment.
Stay animal-friendly,
PS.: Feel free to take a look at the animal welfare blog. There you will also learn, for example, how you can not only create a bird- but also a Create bee friendly garden simply by following your heart.
