What do you do to attract birds to your garden?

My husband and I used to have a wild bird feeder in our garden until we heard this was discouraged as it made the wild birds dependant. We now have a variety of trees and shrubs in our garden, many of them natives. We also have a pond which attracts the birds. We are often visited by blue cranes (white faced herons) which are magnificent but do have an annoying habit of dining on our fish.

by Gayle Beveridge

Our pineapple guava refuses to flower! What's your trick? Do you get fruit on it?

I don't really do naything to get the pineapple guava to flower. I'm a bit of a set and forget gardener but I had hearad you neeed another shrub nearby. Perhaps you should plant a second one.

So far I've done nothing to attract birds to my garden. They're rather a rare site in these parts and I think I'd rather keep it that way ( for functional reasons).

by dwatk

I need to attract a house with a garden to my life first :( I so miss having a garden. BUT we have a lot of birds in our neighbour's backyard. They sit on my kitchen and room window and chirp all day. I love that. If I could upload an audio here, I would have shared a small clip.

by BK

There is something very soothing in listening to birdsong. I particularly like the melodic call of the butcherbird and the gentle twitter of wrens.

I have fruit trees and plenty of flowers, but the bush is all the birds need here. It's bees I try to encourage into the yard.

by meggf

I think we need to attract bees as much as we can. Where would we be without them.

Neighbours in my unit block put out seed and bread, attracting crows, (a couple had just raised a pair of babies), an Indian Myna family and some pigeons.

Quite a variety of songs in the early mornings.

by amanda

We have plenty of crows in our area this year so no need to do anything to attract them. We had to put a lock on our fish feed cupboard because they were teaming up and had worked how to open it and get to the fish food. They are intelligent birds. A couple of years ago we had a currowong visit our pond and for a while I thought that was a crow.

I don't do anything really, I haven't got 'native attracting plants''.
We have been blessed that in the park where we live, we have a great deal of native birds, the park did their own thing, and yrs ago
planted trees all around the place.I get to see the lovely little Rainbow Lorikeets flying all the time.

by jonaja

The rainbow lorikeets are beautiful. They are daily visitors to my best friend's garden.

I love them so much! :)

Grow some grevillia

by fran.

Grevillia are great for attracting birds and are such beautiful flowers. I love them but break out in a rash if I touch them so we cannpt have any in our own garden.

Yes, me too to lots of natives. But I don't do the garden, the other half does.

sadly I don't have any trees in my garden (rental property and plan to ask landlord if we might plant something!). Our little flowering shrubs sometimes attract little honeyeater type birds but that's about it. We just randomly get myna birds and pee wees and an occasional kookaburra. I am working on my wet season garden at the moment and plan to look at how to attract bees and butterflies as well as birds.

by lizzi

I miss butterflies and moths, we don't get so many. I remember there being an abundance of them when I was a kid but that was in the country (i'm in the city now) and I think Mum's extensive vegetable garden may have been an attraction.

we bought some seeds for Swan plants (from Tasmania). They attract the monarch butterflies - they lay their eggs - the plant is noxious to other insects -
we wait to see whether caterpillars survive from the eggs and turn into butterflies. Nature - how clever.

I plant natives

by gbrow

Nothing. I am a bird magnet. They seem to find me wherever I go. I try not to feed them but it is hard, especially when they can be so winsome, the cute little devils. I only ever feed the correct foods and do not believe in making them dependent.

by Rice