Bringing them into the garden

[Gloria]

Some great specific information on plant and wildlife connections.


A Guide to Luring Warblers, Tanagers, Orioles, and Grosbeaks to Your Yard | Audubon

During spring and summer, tanagers are insect specialists. They're experts at harvesting bugs from leaves, branches, and trunks, and are particularly adept at catching bees in mid-air. Cherry and plum trees not only host over 450 caterpillar species for these bug lovers, but they also provide rich fruit, which tanagers increasingly rely on as summer turns to fall.

Eastern and Midwestern birders are familiar with the chink! call of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, a striking species that's often heard but rarely seen as it forages for insects at the very tip top of an oak or beech tree. Both the Rose-breasted and closely related Black-headed Grosbeak consume great quantities of insects in spring and fall, and add fruit to their diets as the year goes on. Elderberries, blackberries, and crabapples are all favorites.
If you live in areas where Evening or Pine Grosbeaks might visit, these birds feast on much of the same fare while also feeding on the seeds and/or leaf buds of oaks, maples, box-elders, and elms. All grosbeaks also seek out the seeds of sunflowers and other garden plants.

[weedy feilds]

My Parents attract Orioles with grape jelly. On porch deck in an old aluminum pie dish. You'd be surprised how many other birds and animals like grape jelly.

Some of the best advice is to plant a various variety of flowering/seeding plants in garden. Or better yet get rid of yard/grass and plant native bushes/flowers/grasses.

[Gloria]

Originally Posted by weedy feilds

Some of the best advice is to plant a various variety of flowering/seeding plants in garden. Or better yet get rid of yard/grass and plant native bushes/flowers/grasses.

I agree. Lots of seed and fruit producers and no chemicals so that the insect population is stable. With our urban garden much of the wildlife is birds and bugs. I'm good with that. Even mosquitoes are food.

[havalotta]

Think I'll try a tray of jelly myself. It's sounding pretty inviting.
Will a cardinal come to oranges like the Baltimores? I heard the first call just a few days ago. Spring is breaking! The redwings are back, the geese, the ducks, and just yesterday ROBINS!

[weedy feilds]

Originally Posted by havalotta

Think I'll try a tray of jelly myself. It's sounding pretty inviting.
Will a cardinal come to oranges like the Baltimores? I heard the first call just a few days ago. Spring is breaking! The redwings are back, the geese, the ducks, and just yesterday ROBINS!

My Parents have tried the oranges for Orioles. Their answer would be Grape Jelly works better. And Cardinals, Goldfinches, Flickers and Crows Like the grape Jelly Too!.

Redwings are back here, the geese never leave and we have seen robins for a week or two.

Saw a woodchuck a couple of days ago and chipmunks have been out for a couple of weeks already.

I'm patiently waiting for the first sign of spring wildflowers in the woods.

[havalotta]

LOTS of blackbirds today. What a welcoming chorus in the trees.

[dapjwy]

I used to put out grape jelly on occasion. I bet it does work better than oranges...but, with all of that added sugar in grape jelly (I actually used to use jam), I switched to just the oranges.

Thanks for the reminder, maybe I should start putting them out again. I've had Baltimore Orioles nesting here last several years. I'm looking forward to having them back again.

[katjh]

Grape jelly works better than oranges here. We don't usually have much luck with orioles in the spring, but we get some juveniles that hang around for awhile in the late summer. They love the grape jelly!