Birds, Mammals and Wildlife Gardening – Garden Plants

There are many species, both native and cultivated or imported, that are prized and appreciated by birds at various times of year. This can be a problem for the keen gardener who finds him or herself in competition with the birds for the produce of the garden, but if you want to encourage birds then you can’t go wrong with the following:

Crocus - the yellow and orange flowers, and especially the stamens inside them, are attractive to sparrows and finches because they contain carotene a yellow pigment that they ingest and which then brightens up their plumage for the breeding season – this means that they tear the flowers apart to get to the bits they want!

Echinops ritro is better known as the Globe Thistle – the seed-heads are eaten by finches and flower heads attract insects that are eaten by other birds, leaving the flowers over the winter offers food at a time which not much else is around.

Helianthus or Sunflower - seed heads are eaten by all finches, robins, and sparrows and the nectar attracts a wide range of insects – again, leaving the flower heads over the winter gives the birds a chance to get oil-rich seeds in the coldest months of the year.

Primula, the Polyanthus or Primrose - these early yellow and orange flowers are attractive to sparrows for the same reason as the crocus is.

Native Wild Plants that are particularly attractive to small bird species include:

Common Poppy – whose seeds are a favourite food of finches.

Musk Mallow

Ox Eye Daisy

Primrose – see above about sparrows

Teasel – the seed heads are a favourite food of finches

Wild Strawberry

Grass – don’t forget that your lawn is like a buffet table for insect-eating birds, ants are eaten by woodpeckers, leatherjackets are popular with starlings and snails get picked off by thrushes, not to mention the humble worm which feeds blackbirds, robins and thrushes.

Birds, mammals and wildlife gardening globe thistle photograph by Carl E Lewis, used under a creative commons attribution licence

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