Bird watching is the perfect hobby for a busy world. You can do it while you're on the phone and while on your way to take the kids to soccer practice. You can watch birds at a bus stop or while you eat a sandwich.
"Bird watching is the fastest-growing outdoor activity," says John Bianchi, a spokesman for the National Audubon Society. About 71-million Americans are bird watchers, Bianchi says, and more than 60 million have bird feeders in their back yards.
While we're enjoying the bright flash of a goldfinch, the antics of a blue jay or the determined progress of a wren as she looks for insects in the fissured bark of an old oak, we're also becoming conservationists.
"We see a definite movement from casually watching birds, and taking vacations that give you bird-watching opportunities, to people seeing what's at stake, how marginalized birds have become," Bianchi says. "That's what backyard bird watching is all about: introducing people to these concepts."
Birds flock to feeders, but a feeder in a well-planted back yard, especially one full of native plants, will attract even more of them. Birds will notice if you plant holly, cedars or viburnum, which all provide shelter and berries. Insects, on which most birds depend, abound in trees and shrubs.
Birds love to visit gardens where black-eyed Susans and coneflowers flourish, and they build their nests in mighty oaks, medium-sized garden trees like crabapples and dogwoods, and evergreens. There is nothing more gratifying than a pretty garden full of wild birds going about their lives.
Jesse Grantham, bird conservation director for Audubon of Texas, has counted nearly 200 different species of birds in or flying over his small city garden in Corpus Christi. Hummingbirds are his favorites.
California gardeners may be able to spot seven hummingbird species. In most of the rest of North America, the ruby-throated hummingbird is the only one you'll see, but in the right situation, you may have half a dozen or more at a time.
For the other birds, Grantham makes his own birdseed mix. He uses black-oil sunflower seed, niger seed, white millet and fine cracked corn and spreads it on the ground. Cardinals like to feed on the ground, but they'll also come to hanging bird feeders, and so will chickadees, blue jays, titmice and nuthatches. If you can't identify them already, buy a bird book or borrow one from the public library.
