All Decked Out for Birds

Simply supply the basics if it's the company of the feathered kind you seek.

By George Harrison, Hubertus, Wisconsin

If you spend any time on your deck or patio and also enjoy watching birds, there's an easy way to combine both interests. Invite the birds to join you! Doing so makes outdoor living more enjoyable. Just imagine...beautiful wild birds singing and flitting from railing to post, up close and personal.

This can happen if you deck your deck (or patio) with a few simple items: specifically, three ingredients most all life needs—shelter, food and water. Supply those, and the birds will most definitely come!

Give 'Em Shelter

If trees, shrubs and ground cover don't already surround your deck or patio, it's easy to create natural shelter that birds can retreat into if threatened by predators or foul weather. Potted evergreens placed in the corners of your outdoor living space create the kind of instant cover that make birds feel safe when visiting...plus, they're pretty to boot!

Another trick is to plant vines beneath deck railings, allowing them to grow up. This provides more natural cover, as well as food (depending on the type of vine you plant), for the birds.

Potted flowers placed on the railing and around the deck or patio give birds another place to hide—and, for some birds, nectar to eat.

Set the Table

Putting out potted plants that sport red blooms, such as geranium, fuchsia and petunia, will attract hummingbirds if they reside in your area. Just imagine being rewarded with the sight of these flying jewels sipping nectar from blossoms a few feet away from you.

Once you woo them with flowers, keep them coming back by setting out sugar-water feeders. By mixing one part sugar to four parts warm water, you will have the perfect nectar food for both hummingbirds and orioles. Both of these species will eat sugar water from May through August, and sometimes into September. Just be sure to hang the feeders on rods or hooks out from the railing so that the sugar water doesn't drip onto the deck.

For seed-eating birds, like northern cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeaks, finches, chickadees and titmice, tube feeders, filled with sunflower or safflower seeds, keep the birds coming every few minutes. A couple of tray feeders filled with wild birdseed mix and mounted on the railing attract other birds, such as sparrows, doves and finches. And suet cakes, placed inside a laminated cage-like feeder and hung from a railing or post, will bring in as many as four different kinds of woodpeckers, nuthatches and, perhaps, a brown creeper. All of these feeders and foods are available from local bird stores or garden centers or on-line.

Offer a Drink

Any kind of water feature adds beauty to the deck or patio, even if it doesn't attract birds. But the good news is that most will. The best water feature is one that moves the water to several levels with a pump, making a splashing noise that birds can hear at some distance.

Be sure that the pools have shallow areas, only an inch or two in depth, so that birds can stand in the water to bathe. If it's any deeper than that, provide a rock or two that they can rest on. If it's hummingbirds you're after, include a spray in the water feature. These winged beauties are apt to fly through it to bathe.