Landscaping for Birds

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The project involved creating a pond and seeding an open area with native grasses and flowers, including big bluestem and switch grasses and oxeye daisies.

Linda convinced her husband to eliminate the use of fertilizers and pesticides and to shrink the size of their lawn.

“It took three years before we noticed anything,” Linda says. “But now we have these huge swaths of big bluestem. I can go out there in the summertime, and I’m buried in grass. It’s beautiful, and it’s as tall as I am. Then the oxeye daisies come up in May, and it’s this gorgeous field of white flowers.” 

Bringing back the wetland was the most exciting part of the project, Linda says, because it attracted so many songbirds and waterfowl they’d never seen.

Now wood ducks and mergansers, bluebirds and bats (flying mammals) nest in houses they’ve provided. Sandhill cranes return every March, and blue and green herons fish in the pond. Thousands of purple irises that had been lying dormant for years now bloom in the spring.

Roll out the red carpet

Four key components are essential for attracting wildlife to your yard: food, water, cover and reproductive areas. Water is the major limiting resource for wildlife, so it’s no wonder the Prostkos noticed such a dramatic difference when they restored their wetland. Adding water doubles wildlife use, says Carrol Henderson, supervisor of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Nongame Wildlife Division (and author of the definitive text on the topic for Midwest gardeners, Landscaping for Wildlife). Bubbling, splashing water doubles it again. And ponds will also attract frogs, toads, salamanders and waterfowl.

“Water means life,” Daniel Dix says. “It is as simple as that. So adding water in your yard can really be an attraction, since small pools that support so much life are becoming more and more rare in the natural world.”

Carrol encourages the use of structural components for wildlife habitat: nest boxes and platforms, dead trees, fallen trees and perches, brush piles and rock piles, salt, dusting beds, grit and bird feeders. 

“To many people, a snag is just firewood waiting to be cut,” Carrol says. He encourages homeowners to leave some dead snags standing because “a snag is a bird’s version of a fast-food restaurant.” Forty-three bird species use them in the Midwest – hollow trees provide nest cavities for barred owls, wood ducks, pileated woodpeckers and eastern bluebirds, to name a few.

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