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Make your backyard a safe place for wildlife
No matter how big or small your outdoor space, you can create a haven for local wildlife. By providing basic needs like water, food and shelter, you can make a difference in your own backyard.
The sunflower-blackbird conflict has given me much to think about over the years. As an animal lover and environmentalist, I recognize that my role in the ecosystem and free market will always be fraught with contradiction. As long as I’m eating products with sunflower oil or buying corn and rice and other foods birds love, I can’t deny my contribution to the problem. But just because it’s not possible to live purely doesn’t mean we can’t all do our part to mitigate the damage. In the case of backyard wildlife, I’d rather not contribute to the sad irony of feeding birds foods that may have been grown at the expense of their brethren thousands of miles away.
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So where does that leave the humane gardener or avid birdwatcher? For starters, it helps to know that every garden, no matter the size, can be filled with plants that provide sustenance to birds the natural way. From coneflowers and sunflowers to winterberry hollies and oak trees, many species offer seeds and berries and serve as magnets for the insects that birds love.
The more spaces you fill with native plants, the less your feathered friends will rely on handouts from feeders. And many avian experts say that bird feeding is largely unnecessary, often advocating for limiting feeding to wintertime, particularly during heavy snows that obscure access to natural food sources. (It’s important to note that once you start feeding in winter, birds can develop a reliance on you, especially in rural areas of northern climates, where feeders are fewer and farther between. “If you go away for two weeks, you’re really compromising those birds,” says HSUS senior scientist John Hadidian, who advises asking a neighbor to take care of feeders.)
In addition to restricting feeding times to the cold season, you can reduce or eliminate purchases of commercial bird food by making your own. DIY mixtures can also help humane-minded gardeners avoid beef suet, a byproduct of factory farming, in favor of other fat sources such as peanut butter and vegetable suet.
Sunflowers carry a more complicated meaning for me now, but the animals thriving in my backyard are better for the knowledge gained. Even my approach to the sawfly larvae who feasted on that first garden has changed. I’ve since learned that it’s often best just to let the ecological community take care of itself—that enduring a few losses can lead to a more beautiful, sustainable and life-giving landscape in the long term.
