Attracting wildlife: active vs passive

This article covers birds and insects. I’m not deliberately attracting mammals – but they’re out there, some unwanted and others pieces of the wild. Until recently we kept everything passive, where we put in plants, nesting boxes and kept brushy places wild – but didn’t have to do anything on a regular basis. Now we’ve added some active elements: bird feeders and a place to put sticks for birds to gather for their nests.

Active Enhancements

This basically comes down to providing things that have to be replenished on a regular basis, mostly food for birds. The other thing is sticks for nesting, but this only needs to be done during the period where birds are building their nests – in Sacramento, that’s February and on until the nests are complete and occupied.

Bird food

Some birds won’t eat anything you provide. These are generally birds that hunt: phoebes hunt insects; hawks don’t eat bird seed. For the rest, you need to specialize.

We don’t put out hummingbird feeders. They need thorough cleaning and we can provide food for hummingbirds easily enough in the garden, especially considering that insects are a major source of protein and are abundant enough in the landscape.

This is not an either/or thing, either. Birds search the garden for food, then visit feeders for more. Sometimes they’re looking for protein – insects – in the garden and carbs – seeds – in the feeders.

It’s been a learning experience, with a lot of fine tuning required. Here’s a few things we found:

Rats

Anything with seeds on or near the ground will attract rats. On a cloudy day, they’ll even run out in the open. It seems we don’t have enough predators to make them cautious. So either feed small amounts on sunny days that will be completely consumed by birds, raise the feeders where it will be hard for the rats to find them, or hope some predator moves in to take care of them. Don’t poison the rats! Dead rats can be eaten by other animals – like cats and dogs – and killed too.

Squirrels

Although they’re rodents, they’re cute and fluffy. It’s a love/hate thing. There’s no easy way to keep them out of your seed feeder. You can buy hot chili suet that apparently discourages them. Squirrels do not like ghost peppers! Birds on the other hand, are apparently immune to chilis and will happily munch away.

Seeds

A variety of seeds brings a variety of birds. What else brings variety? Feeder placement and shape. Flat platforms work well for doves, but you can also scatter seed on a wide paved surface. A feeder higher off the ground seems to favor different birds than a feeder near the ground.

These seeds attract these birds

Suet

You’ll get different birds with suet than with seeds. Since suet blocks for birds can contain seeds and insects in addition to the suet itself. They can also be fortified with calcium for eggs, and have higher protein content than seeds. There is non-melting suet for warm places, hot chili suet to discourage squirrels, peanut, insect… all kinds of flavors. There are also seed blocks held together with gelatin that I’m lumping in with suet, with the warning that these will disintegrate in the rain. Many are labeled as being for woodpeckers, but the woodpeckers themselves don’t seem to care that much.

Suet blocks go into cages, sold wherever you get the suet. The assumption is that the birds will cling to the cages to eat. Some will, some won’t – so I wired on sticks for perching and attracted more bird species. Without perches, the suet lasts a lot longer but since the goal is feeding lots of birds I’ll stick to the perch configuration.

suet-eating birds

Nuttall’s woodpecker, Yellow-billed magpie, oak titmouse, white-crowned sparrow (perches), Northern mockingbird (perches), White-breasted nuthatch

Passive Enhancements

If you can set it out and basically forget it, it’s passive. Some seasonal maintenance might be needed in the case of plants and water features, but otherwise it’s hands off from your point of view. Many birds that won’t come to feeders will enjoy passive features.

Passive features: who likes what

Birds

Birds eat a variety of foods: insects, berries, nectar, seeds. So we make sure our plants provide these things – and we don’t deadhead flowers so they can produce seeds. This is not to say we don’t harvest the occasional cut flower, but we do leave flowers from season’s end on the plants to produce seed. A range of flowers produce nectar for hummingbirds, with overlapping bloom seasons to give several months worth of food.

Birds also like to bathe, so water is an essential feature. Birds even take baths in the rain, so it must be part of their daily ritual. Our water feature has filtered, running water so we don’t have to clean it several times per week. It’s planted with mint and watercress, too – both pollinator plants for bees.

Nesting boxes can work. Ours seem to stay permanently empty, but we do have birds nesting in the garden. Under the eaves, in shrubs, in trees. Just not in the nest boxes!

Insects

You could consider insects to be food for birds, since caterpillars are a major food source for nesting birds. So that brings three types of food to the garden: food plants for insect larvae, nectar plants for butterflies and some bees and pollen plants for other bees and some beneficial flies. In between are a range of other insects: predators, herbivores and whatever decides to move into the garden. The keys to making things insect – and bird – friendly is to avoid poisoning your garden with pesticides.

Our insects