I love watching the birds flying about my homestead. I setup a feeder and bird bath just outside my front window where my son and my wife and I can sit and watch our feathered visitors. My son just loves seeing all the birds (he is 2).
The bird in the picture is a Dark-eyed Junco with I think sparrows by the feeder. Common birds but still fun to see.
But when we moved into our place our front area was all grass and we did not get visited by many birds.
Creating Habitat
I started by planting hundreds of native trees and shrubs in hedgerows along the edges of my property. This picture shows the area behind the feeder in the first snowy picture. The birds love this hedgerow and spend a lot of time in it.
We get visited by Spotted Towhees on a daily basis which are normally found in forests and forest edges. But with all the new vegetation the towhees are happy to hangout near my house.
I don't just plant native plants since I'm trying to homestead and grow food for my family. I also love growing flowers and my wife and I love to have fresh picked flowers sitting in a vase on our table during the summer. We also love watching the bees and hummingbirds go from flower to flower.
But there are still tons of natives plants mixed in--including many with beautiful flowers of their own!
These attract many of the insects that birds rely on to feed their young. While generalist insects (ones that eat a wide range of plants) will make use of non-native plants the majority of insects are actually specialists like the monarch butterfly. These specialists need the native plants to survive and since they are the majority of insects they are critical to supporting our feathered friends.
You can learn more about the benefits of native plants in my blog post: 5 Ways Your Homestead Will Benefit from Native Plants
Just 2 years in my property has gone from rarely being visited by birds (except for robins and starlings) to getting flocks of many different types on a daily basis. I love seeing the woodland birds and now even water birds (more on that later) showing up.
I can't wait to see what 5 more years of creating habitat will bring!
The Importance of Water
On the small scale a birdbath can be an amazing way of helping our feathered friends in the summer and attracting them to your property. The one in the picture is a simple one I made using a ceramic base for a pot put on a stump.
But if you have the space you can do so much more by creating larger water bodies like ponds.
I created this pond by building my own "beaver dam" in a low point where a seasonal stream flows. This stream has no fish, is not even recorded on county or state records, and is normally no more than a foot across and only 6 inches deep at most.
Nothing to write home about.
But now there is a large pond that is waist deep in the middle and I will be expanding it over the summer. All of this done by just mimicking nature and not using any pond liners or artificial materials.
And the birds are already enjoying it even though it is just a couple months old.
I don't have a camera with a good zoom so that picture was taken using my smartphone put up to my binoculars. Not the best picture but it works.
We get ducks and geese coming most days now and I can't wait to see what other birds show up as spring comes. I'm also excited to see what happens when I expand this pond and build the next pond upstream a bit.
What About You?
First off, I want to say thank you to @keithboone for starting the #FeatheredFriday tag. Also, I want to do a shout out to @goat-girlz who made me aware of #FeatheredFriday with her post Another Feathered Friday.
I love watching birds on my place and this weekly event here on Steemit is just awesome in my book!
Please leave a comment with your answer--I would love to hear from you!
Also, if you need help creating habitat for our feathered friends I run a website called Wild Homesteading that has weekly articles to help you work with nature to start your homestead and grow your own food. By working with nature you can provide food for your family and support your local wildlife... like our feathered friends!