Songbirds, like many insects, have become rare in our latitudes. With a bird- and insect-friendly garden, you help the animals find both a habitat and enough food. The lively chirping of birds is the best reward for this. Native trees and bushes in particular offer plenty of hiding places, breeding places and a rich supply of food.
Which trees are particularly suitable for birds?
Native trees such as black elder, hawthorn, blackthorn, barberry, privet, oak, European beech, rowan, cornelian cherry, pear, spar and bird cherry are particularly suitable for a bird-friendly garden, as they offer breeding places, food and protection for birds.
Why is it so important to make your garden bird-friendly?
Suitable living spaces have become rare, and not just in cities and metropolitan areas. Ever larger areas are being concreted over, while fewer trees are being planted in the small terraced house gardens due to the lack of space and the effort involved in maintaining them - and if they are, then often ecologically completely useless hedges and shrubs such as the now widespread cherry laurel. Huge monocultures dominate the countryside, rarely interrupted by bushes and trees. In our sprawling cultural landscape, birds can hardly find any places that offer them protection from predators as well as breeding grounds and food. With a bird-friendly garden, you create a refuge for endangered animals and help save endangered species from extinction.
How to plant your garden in a bird-friendly way
For a garden to appear attractive to birds, there must be dense hedges and bushes as well as larger trees. Smaller birds such as the still common blackbird, but also blackcaps, greenfinches and red-backed shrikes prefer dense bushes and hedges that bloom profusely in spring (and thus attract many insects) and provide delicious fruit as food in autumn. The denser and thornier such a hedge, the more protection it offers from birds of prey and ground predators - especially since such a hedge provides excellent privacy protection. Other birds, on the other hand, need large trees, such as the bullfinch, the jay, the chaffinch, the various species of woodpeckers or the nuthatch. Older trees and bushes also attract cavity nesters, who set up their breeding holes in the holes in the wood. You can also support these bird species by hanging nesting boxes (€25.00 on Amazon) in protected locations.
Prefer native trees
When choosing bird-friendly garden trees, you should primarily choose native trees and shrubs. Imported species are often unsuitable because animals do not accept them and are therefore worthless from an ecological point of view. So instead of the unfortunately omnipresent cherry laurel, you should
- Black elderberry (Sambucus nigra)
- Hawthorn (Crategus monogyna/laevigata)
- Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)
- Barberry (Berberis thunbergii)
- Privet (Ligustrum vulgare)
- Oak, European beech and other native deciduous trees
- Rowberry / Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
- Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas)
- Pear (Pyrus communis)
- Sparrow (Sorbus domestica)
- Bird cherry (Prunus avium)
Tip
Leave the leaves that fall off in autumn lying still - when they rot, they serve as fertilizer for the tree, and many insects like to hide in them. Fallen fruit and fruits remaining on the tree can also remain in place - they serve as food for birds in winter.
