A bumblebee visits a coneflower in a Dayton, Ohio, backyard. Photo by Josh Mayes.

The following week, some U.S. activists made headlines by demanding the government ban a class of insecticides, neonicotinoids, after learning the European Union placed a moratorium their use due to concerns that the chemicals are harming honeybees. (Imported to North America during the 1600s, honeybees are native to Europe.) Such concerns are understandable. Beyond their honey-making prowess, domestic honeybees are worth tens of billions of dollars to U.S farmers and beekeepers, who truck colonies back and forth across the country to pollinate commercial crops such as almonds, soybeans and watermelon.

A wild bee visits a pumpkin flower in an Ephraim, Utah, garden. Photo by Paul Gardner.

Why We Need Natives

Yet with all the attention being paid to honeybees, I wonder if we’re overlooking an even more important story: the critical role wild, native bees play pollinating plants both in natural and agricultural systems. And unlike domestic honeybees, these natives do it for free.

Mace Vaughan, pollinator program director at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, made precisely this point when I interviewed him recently for an upcoming story in  National Wildlife magazine. Bees are by far the most important pollinators in natural ecosystems, Vaughan told me. The insects also are essential to producing more than a third of all foods and beverages humans consume. “In the United States alone, native bees contribute at least $3 billion a year to the farm economy,” Vaughan said. “We grossly overlook the critical role these animals play.”

A bumblebee feeds on buttonbush at NWF’s office in Reston, Virginia. Photo by Laura Tangley.

Wild Pollinator Champs

I learned about that role a few years ago while working on another article, “The Buzz on Native Pollinators,” that described research conducted by ecologist Rachel Winfree of Rutgers University. Winfree had just published in Ecology Letters results of a study finding that on 21 out of 23 farms in the Delaware Valley of New Jersey, wild bees fully pollinated commercially grown watermelons with no help from honeybees. “If we lost all honeybees in this region to colony-collapse disorder tomorrow,” she said, “between 88 and 90 percent of the watermelon crop would be fine.”

This February, Winfree and dozens of colleagues published results of much larger study in Science that looked at a diversity of fruit, seed, nut and other crops growing in 600 fields on all continents except Antarctica (where no food is grown). They found that visits by wild bees increased production at all study sites, compared with just 14 percent for managed honeybees. The upshot: Wild bees were more effective crop pollinators than were domestic honeybees.

If honeybees continue to decline—and many experts suspect they will—wild bees will become even more important in the future. Worrisome as colony-collapse disorder is, it  may have had “a silver lining,” Scott Hoffman Black, the Xerces Society’s executive director, told me. “Now many more people know that their food is pollinated, and that we need native bees and other wild animals to do that.”

Help wild bees by growing native plants they need to thrive, then turn your yard into a Certified Wildlife Habitat ® site. This month only, Garden For Wildlife Month, NWF will plant a native tree for every property certified.

A male northern cardinal feeds its mate a beetle larva in a Brandon, Mississippi, backyard. Insects, which rely on native plants, are critical food for birds, particularly during the breeding season. Photo by Paul Brown.

I didn’t appreciate just how important native plants are, however, until I began to work a story, “Urban Renewal,” published in the current issue of National Wildlife magazine. Reporting for the article, which describes various ways residents of cities and suburbs can help birds, I interviewed wildlife-gardening guru Doug Tallamy, an entomologist at the University of Delaware, and read his book, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants.

Tallamy’s key message was that native plants are essential to producing the insects birds need, particularly during the breeding season. “Birds do not reproduce on berries and seeds,” he told me. “Ninety-six percent of terrestrial birds rear their young on insects.”

Carolina chickadees can feed their offspring up to 590 caterpillars a day. Photo by Patricia McCairen.

And they need a lot of caterpillars. Recently, Tallamy spent 16 days observing a Carolina chickadee nest in his Delaware backyard. He discovered that the birds fed their offspring between 300 and 590 caterpillars a day. The chickadees needed 4,800 caterpillars to rear a single clutch of chicks.

“We’re used to thinking of the plants in our yards as decorations,” Tallamy says. It’s wonderful when plants are attractive, he adds, but if they’re exotics such as gingko, crape myrtle or European privet—all unpalatable to insects—they do not pass along the sun’s energy to birds and other wildlife. “You might as well install a statue,” Tallamy says.

Learn more about choosing and cultivating native plants, then turn your yard into a Certified Wildlife Habitat ® site. This month only, Garden For Wildlife Month, NWF will plant a native tree in your honor when you certify your property.

During summer, male birds such as these indigo and painted buntings are wearing their colorful breeding plumage. Photo by Bernard Friel.

Ever since I started feeding backyard birds several years ago, I’ve religiously taken down my feeders this time of year and not put them back up until late fall or early winter. Natural food is abundant during the warm months, I figured, and I’d heard that bird feeding in spring could potentially disrupt the timing or routes of the animals’ migration to summer breeding grounds.

Backyard Birding Pleasures

This year, however, I’m reconsidering my decision. While working on a story, “The Case For Summer Feeding,” published in the current issue of National Wildlife magazine, I spoke with George H. Harrison, the author of seven books about backyard birding. Harrison told me there’s no evidence that the presence or absence of feeders has altered the migration behavior of any backyard bird species. In addition, he shared four reasons why it’s a good idea to feed birds during summer — especially if, like me, you’re an avid backyard bird-watcher:

1. Birds that visit feeders during summer include species not present during winter. Depending on where you live, you may be visited by rose-breasted or black-headed grosbeaks as well as several species of orioles and hummingbirds that will be hundreds or thousands of miles away later in the year.
2. During summer, birds that look drab during winter are sporting their colorful breeding plumage. Consider, for example, the bright yellow male goldfinches you see only during the warmer months.
3. Once they’ve nested and their offspring have fledged, adult birds will introduce their young to your bird feeders and birdbaths. “I’ve seen fuzzy, rotund baby chickadees, red-capped downy woodpecker young and spot-breasted American robin chicks, many begging for food from their overworked parents,” Harrison says.
4. Warmer temperatures encourage closer viewing of backyard birds. If you regularly sit on a patio or deck, the birds at nearby feeders and baths will get used to you and go about their business while you watch them. “In my experience,” Harrison says, “there’s no better way to enjoy a summer day.”

In a Florida backyard, a black bear raids a sugar-water feeder. Photo by Reba Anderson.

A Bear of a Problem

The case for summer bird feeding sounded convincing. After we published the story, however, we heard from several readers who pointed out potential problems with summer feeding in areas where wild bears roam. “Wildlife officers in many states say the first taste of human food bears get is from bird feeders, and once they get that taste, they keep coming around people until they get killed,” wrote one worried reader. Bears in backyards also put pets and property at risk.

For these reasons, it’s probably a good idea to take feeders down between mid-March and mid-November if you live in a location where bears are active. But “taking down a bird feeder does not mean a homeowner has ruined his or her wildlife habitat,” notes NWF Naturalist David Mizejewski in the National Wildlife article “When Carnivores Come Calling” by Mark Cheater. “Feeders should be viewed only as supplements to the natural foods a person provides for wildlife by cultivating native plants,” Mizejewski adds.

Since I live in an urban area with no bears but plenty of breeding birds, I’ve decided to leave my feeders up for the first time this summer—though I’ll not neglect nurturing the native plants that provide birds and other wildlife the most important food of all.

Learn more about using feeders and native plants to support wildlife, then turn your property into a Certified Wildlife Habitat® site.

A monarch butterfly feeds on swamp milkweed in Connecticut. Photo by Victor Quintanilla.

This visit, however, turned out to be disappointing. Though the boardwalk leading down to the protected monarch grove looked just as I remembered it, I spotted only a handful of butterflies flitting among the eucalyptus and Monterey pines that once teemed with them. A reserve employee suggested I drive about a mile south to Lighthouse Field State Beach, a more open area bordered by roads and houses and visited by large numbers of bikers, dog walkers, beach goers and surfers. Some monarchs, in fact, were there—at least several hundred clustered in a small, roped-off grove of pine and eucalyptus. Why had the insects moved down the road to this apparently less hospitable habitat?

John Dayton, a San Jose State University biologist conducting a survey of the colony at Lighthouse Field, provided an answer.  During the 1990s, Dayton told me, a deadly fungal disease, pine pitch canker, killed off most of the large Monterey pines that had sheltered the monarch grove at Natural Bridges from strong winds. Without this windbreak, many of the large eucalyptus trees at the northern portion of the grove blew down during winter storms. The loss of these trees has degraded the roost area, forcing monarchs to seek shelter elsewhere beginning about mid-December.

But Dayton had even more troubling news: Since the mid-1990s, he said, the number of overwintering monarchs up and down the California coast has declined by nearly 90 percent. According to the Xerces Society, butterfly populations at Natural Bridges alone have dropped from about 120,000 in 1997 to just over 1,000 (when the insects are there at all).

Two monarch caterpillars nibble on a milkweed stem. Photo by Larry Lynch.

Dayton, Taylor and other scientists point to several culprits. In California, coastal development and habitat degradation have reduced the area suitable for overwintering monarchs. In Mexico, illegal logging, poorly regulated tourism and water withdrawals near the butterfly colonies are taking a toll. Last year, when monarchs headed north to feed and breed beginning in March, they encountered extreme drought and heat waves that persisted in some areas from spring through fall.

Throughout the butterflies’ North American range, declines in milkweed plants—which monarchs need in order to reproduce—also are knocking down the insect’s numbers. The problem is particularly acute in the U.S. Midwest, where genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant corn and soybeans now allow farmers to apply the chemicals broadly, wiping out milkweed that once thrived between crop rows and in fallow fields on millions of acres of agricultural land.

According to an article in the April/May 2013 issue of National Wildlife magazine, climate change may worsen the monarchs’ situation. In her story, “Catering to Butterfly Royalty,” writer Doreen Cubie reports results of experiments suggesting that as atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise, milkweeds are likely to produce less of the toxic compounds that protect both butterflies and caterpillars from predation. Milkweed leaves also may get tougher. “Caterpillars would have a harder time chewing the leaves,” says ecologist and study author Rachel Vannette of Stanford University.

Cubie concludes her text with a hopeful message: While there’s not much an individual can do about effects climate change may have on butterflies in the future, she writes, “there is a simple way to help today’s monarchs. You can grow more milkweeds in your garden.”

Find out about five native milkweeds that are easy to cultivate, then help butterflies and other backyard wildlife by turning your property into a Certified Wildlife Habitat® site.

Defined beds of native plants, along with benches and a patio, made this Washington, D.C., wildlife garden more appealing to neighbors. Photo by Laura Tangley.

Not only did I make some early bad decisions about cultivating nonnative plants—later corrected—I did not plan ahead to consider how my neighbors might react to the unconventional landscape. It’s too bad I couldn’t have read “Gardening With a Good-Neighbor Policy,” an article by Doreen Cubie published in the February/March 2013 issue of National Wildlife magazine. In the article, Cubie shares 10 “suggestions for redesigning your yard to attract wildlife while at the same time keeping neighbors and local authorities happy.”

Here are three of her tips:

Lay the groundwork: “Getting your neighbors on board is really important,” says Erin Cord, who manages Wildlife Austin, a project operated by that city’s parks department to promote neighborhood wildlife habitat. Cord suggests talking to residents who live nearby to explain what you are planning to do before you begin your project.

Start slowly: Don’t remove all or even most of your lawn at one time. Try putting in a small hummingbird and butterfly garden, then gradually expand it. Starting small gives neighbors time to become accustomed to your yard’s new look.

Don’t leave food on the ground for pets or other animals: The native plants you cultivate in your yard should provide sufficient nutrition to support insects, birds and other wild creatures.

How NOT to garden for wildlife. Just ignore those pleading eyes. Photo by Laura Tangley.

Neighborhood reaction was, understandably, less than enthusiastic, ranging from amusement to annoyance to worse. Beyond the aesthetic concerns, “my” raccoons became nuisances far beyond my own yard, approaching people much too closely and wreaking havoc with manicured lawns (digging for worms) and trash cans during the middle of the night.

But all was not lost. Miraculously, nobody reported me to animal control or any other city authority. Then, as I became better educated about wildlife gardening by working with NWF’s Certified Wildlife Habitat® program, I began to change my ways. After that season’s raccoons dispersed, I refrained from feeding subsequent generations. I tamed my jungle by creating well-defined beds of mostly native plants interspersed with human-friendly touches such as walkways, fountains and benches. Most important of all, I began to communicate with the neighbors. Proudly displayed, my official Certified Wildlife Habitat® sign always helps get the conversation going.

Check out the rest of Cubie’s neighbor-friendly wildlife gardening tips, then learn how to help wildlife in your own yard by making it a Certified Wildlife Habitat® site.

A cedar waxwing feasts on white mulberry in a Michigan backyard. Photo by John E. Heintz, Jr.

Among them, perhaps my favorite was a white mulberry, Morus alba, a fast-growing tree that is native to northern China. Every spring, this tree—which seemed to double in size each year—would be covered with berries that lured in an amazing assortment of resident and seasonal birds, from chatty mockingbirds and catbirds to colorful Baltimore orioles and scarlet tanagers to large flocks of ravenous cedar waxwings—all in the middle of metropolitan Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, at my job as senior editor for NWF’s National Wildlife magazine, I began to learn about the benefits to birds and other wildlife of cultivating native rather than nonnative plants as well as the work NWF does to combat invasive species. As my knowledge grew, I stopped planting new exotic species altogether, particularly once I registered my property as an NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat ® site. That prized white mulberry, though, I left in peace. After all, the tree did not appear to be invasive, and many of the birds that were feasting on its berries were migratory species. I was surely helping these birds by providing an abundant and nutritious food during their long, arduous journeys north.

But recently, after working with Virginia writer John Carey on a story just published in the magazine, I’m no longer so sure about that decision. In the article, “Ecological Traps,” Carey describes research conducted by Ohio State University ecologist Amanda Rodewald on the potential effects on northern cardinals of feeding and nesting in nonnative Asian honeysuckle. Over the course of six years, Rodewald and her students meticulously monitored the fates of 888 northern cardinal nests in honeysuckle and other plants in central Ohio, observing each nest at least every few days during the breeding seasons. “It was a ton of work,” says the scientist.

A male northern cardinal courts his mate in a Texas backyard. Photo by Howard Cheek.

And there was more bad news. As another part of the study, Rodewald’s team collected feathers from 280 male cardinals, then photographed them and used computer software to measure each feather’s shade of red and color intensity. Normally, males with the brightest feathers are the most fit because they’ve competed successfully for foods rich both in nutrients and the pigments that make feathers red. But in urban and suburban areas where cardinals feed in honeysuckle, that connection is lost because the nonnative berries contain abundant pigments but fewer nutrients than do native berries. The result: Nonnative honeysuckle “reduces the value of plumage brightness as a sign of male quality,” Rodewald says.

I wondered: What unexpected effects might nonnative mulberries be having on the cardinals, waxwings and other birds that feed in my yard? Fortunately, white mulberry is a short-lived as well as fast-growing species, so the tree is beginning to die on its own. And these days, whenever I notice a nonnative volunteer sprouting on my property, I quickly pull it up, roots and all.

Find out which plants are native to your region, then learn how to help birds and other wildlife by making your yard a Certified Wildlife Habitat ® site.

If you participate–and we hope you do–here’s an idea for something to do in the dark without your television or computer handy. Just sit quietly and listen! Depending on where you live, you’re likely to hear one or more of the following animals vocalizing sometime between sunset and sunrise.

1. Owls

Barred Owl by Peggy Hanna

Listen to the “Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all?” call of the barred owl:

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. Katydids

Katydid by Katherine Clifton

Listen to the sound of katydids singing at night:

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Frogs

Frog Close-up by Evan Gracie

Listen to frogs calling at night:

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Crickets

Field Crickets by Gail Napor

Listen to crickets chirping at night:

Click here to view the embedded video.

5. Mockingbirds

Northern Mockingbirds by Dennis Raffelson

Listen to one northern mockingbird’s amazing song:

Click here to view the embedded video.

All of the photos above were donated by past participants in the National Wildlife® Photo Contest. To enter your best shots in this year’s competition, visit the contest site.

Explore More: Check out five animal species you may see in your backyard at night. To learn more about nocturnal wildlife and how to attract and nurture native species that come out after the sun sets, read “Enjoying the Nightlife” by Janet Marinelli in National Wildlife magazine.

Certify Your Property: Make your backyard more attractive to wildlife active both day and night by turning it into an NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat®  site.

All of these photos were donated by past participants in the National Wildlife® Photo Contest. To enter your best shots in this year’s competition, visit the contest site.

Bald Eagle

Devastated by widespread use of DDT, the number of nesting pairs of bald eagles outside Alaska declined to just 417 by 1963. When the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, the raptor was listed as endangered throughout the Lower 48, except in Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, where it was designated as threatened. Over the following decades, recovery efforts included captive breeding, reintroductions and protection of breeding sites. Along with a ban on DDT, these efforts paid off: By 2007, the Lower 48 housed 10,000 nesting pairs–a 25-fold increase–and the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list. Photo by Robert Palmer.

 Brown Pelican

By the late 1950s, U.S. populations of the brown pelican had crashed as a result of illegal hunting and the use of DDT, which led to fatal thinning of eggshells after parents ingested contaminated fish. In 1970, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the bird as endangered throughout its range. A subsequent ban on DDT, along with transplanting thousands of chicks from Florida to Louisiana, led to a remarkable recovery. In 2009, the brown pelican was removed from the endangered species list. Though pelicans were hit hard by the Gulf oil disaster that began a year later, their numbers in most places are stable or increasing and nesting success is high. Photo by Kelle Herrick.

Whooping Crane

Between 15,000 and 20,000 whooping cranes once ranged widely across North America, from central Canada to Mexico and from Utah to the East Coast. But unregulated hunting and habitat destruction devastated the bird’s populations. By 1941, only 21 whooping cranes remained in the wild. Thanks to reintroductions and other actions under the Endangered Species Act, this elegant bird is beginning to bounce back. Today some 599 cranes live in three separate wild populations. The birds remain at risk—harmed by illegal shooting, habitat loss and degradation, collisions with power lines and other threats—so continued vigilance and conservation funding under the Act remain critical. Photo by Don Kates.

Peregrine Falcon

Another victim of widespread DDT use from the 1940s through the 1960s, the peregrine falcon was nearly wiped out from the continental United States. As top predators, the raptors absorbed large amounts of pesticide from prey such as fish and other birds. DDT killed both adults and offspring, whose shells cracked before hatching. By 1970, no peregrines nested east of the Mississippi River. After DDT was banned in 1972, and the birds were designated as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, the raptors began to recover. Today there are thousands of peregrine nest sites nationwide. Photo by Herb Houghton.

Piping Plover

Tiny, well-camouflaged shorebirds, piping plovers are particularly vulnerable to beach goers and their off-road vehicles during the nesting season as well as to coastal development. The birds also are killed by dogs, cats and native predators. In response to steep population declines, the piping plover was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1986 (designated endangered inland and threatened along the Atlantic Coast). Since then, the species has partially recovered. The number of nesting pairs in the Midwest grew from 16 to about 63. On the Atlantic Coast, the number of pairs has increased from 790 to nearly 1,800 today. Photo by Ken Lee.

Help NWF celebrate Endangered Species Day! Learn more about endangered birds and other at-risk plants and animals in your region and share the importance of conserving our nation’s wildlife with your friends and family.

Sources: “The Bald Eagle in America” by NWF staff, National Wildlife, December/January 2010, “Oil Spill Hammers Brown Pelicans” by Laura Tangley, National Wildlife, October/November 2010 and Endangered Species Online Bulletin, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, April/May/June 2012.

A young male ruby-throated hummingbird sips nectar from bee balm in an Ohio backyard. Photo by Bud Hensley.

Indeed, in recent years, scientists and birders alike have noticed that several of the country’s 21 hummingbird species are showing up earlier, leaving later and ranging more widely than they once did. While the causes of such changes remain a topic of debate, experts agree that there’s never been a better time to entice hummingbirds to visit your garden.

It’s easy to attract hummingbirds to your yard. Here’s how:

1. Hang a feeder.

To prepare sugar water for the feeder, mix one part sugar to four parts boiling water. Never use honey or artificial sweetener. Both can cause a fungal infection in the birds. The addition of red dye is completely unnecessary and may even harm hummers. You can, however, make extra sugar water and store the excess in the refrigerator for as long as two weeks.

Change your feeders’ sugar water frequently, even if no birds seem to be visiting. The “nectar” can spoil quickly, sending a hummer away no matter how hungry it is. Replace the solution every five to seven days during the cooler months, and as often as every two days when summer temperatures remain above 90 degrees F. Rinse the feeder thoroughly—without soap—before refilling. Clean it once a month with a very mild, diluted bleach solution.

2. Fill your yard with flowering plants.

When you choose your plants, consider when they will bloom. One of the keys to luring hummers to your yard, and keeping them there, is to set out annuals and perennials with different blooming periods. By doing so, you’ll be certain there will be a steady supply of flowers in your yard from early spring until well into the fall. In warmer climates, some plants that bloom during the winter months will provide the birds with a year-round source of nectar.

Consider the color and shape of flowers. Almost anything red and tubular is a favorite. Pink and orange are also desirable, followed in descending order by purple, blue and yellow blossoms. As a rule, hummingbirds choose flowers that contain a lot of nectar and just a little fragrance.

Excellent hummingbird plants include native honeysuckles, most varieties of sages or salvia, many types of columbine and perennial penstemons. Other good bets are bee balm or wild bergamot, cardinal flower, trumpet creeper, ocotillo, lupines, scarlet monkey flower and fire pink. Check with a local native plant society or your local nursery to determine which of these native plants will grow best in your part of the country.

3. Avoid insecticides.

While most people think hummingbirds feed only on nectar, the birds feed their young a diet made up almost entirely of small insects. In addition, adult birds need regular doses of protein from mosquitoes, spiders, thrips, gnats and other arthropods. Some hummer lovers go so far as to hang an overripe melon or banana near one of their feeders to attract extra insects. Obviously, using a product that kills insects will also harm the birds.

4. Don’t forget water.

A constant source of water will complete any hummingbird haven. If you have a birdbath, place a couple of flat rocks in it to give the tiny birds a chance to bathe. Or add a drip fountain attachment, available at most garden centers. Running water seems to be a magnet to hummers—they will even fly through the spray of a sprinkler.

May is Garden for Wildlife Month—and the perfect time of year for making your yard more inviting to hummingbirds and other native wildlife!

The photo above of a ruby-throated hummingbird drinking nectar from bee balm was donated by photographer Bud Hensley and entered in the National Wildlife® Photo Contest. To enter your photos in this year’s contest, visit the official contest site.

Sources: “Creating a Haven for Hummingbirds” by Doreen Cubie, National Wildlife, October/November 2002 and “The Hummingbirds of Winter” by Doreen Cubie, National Wildlife, December/January 2011.

Create a haven for hummingbirds and other critters in your own backyard and have it designated as an official Certified Wildlife Habitat site. Certify in the month of May and we’ll plant a tree in your honor!

An adult male rose-breasted grosbeak in breeding plumage feeds on gumbo-limbo fruit in Florida. Photo by Michelle Wisniewski.

Glancing out the window at my feeder last weekend, I noticed something unusual: a streaky, buff-breasted, brown bird that was larger—and had a much bigger bill—than the dozen or so house sparrows that surrounded it. What the bird most reminded me of was a rose-breasted grosbeak, but the colors were all wrong (for either a male or female). So was the location. Though I’ve seen a handful of these lovely birds in my life, it’s been only in New England or the Blue Ridge Mountains, not particularly close to my Washington, DC, backyard.

A quick look at The Sibley Guide to Birds I pulled from my bookshelf solved the mystery. It turned out that my baffling backyard visitor looked just like Sibley’s detailed drawing of a “1st winter male” rose-breasted grosbeak. And the map at the bottom of the page showed clearly that these birds—which spend summer north or west of Washington, DC, and winter far to the south—do indeed pass through my area during spring and fall migration.

Long-distance Travelers

Rose-breasted grosbeaks breed in deciduous and mixed woodlands across much of Canada and the northeastern to Midwestern United States. Their winter range extends from central-southern Mexico through the Caribbean and Central America to northern South America. Scientists have confirmed and published reports of a few grosbeaks that seem to be spending winters in Florida.

Out West, fire-prevention policies have encouraged forests to spread on the Great Plains, causing the range of the rose-breasted grosbeak to extend westward. In some places, the birds now overlap with black-headed grosbeaks, and the two species may hybridize in these areas. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, rose-breasted-black-headed grosbeak hybrids can look like either parent species or a mixture of the two, “with various combinations of pink, orange and black.”

Help Migratory Birds!

Rose-breasted grosbeaks and other Neotropical migrants—birds that breed in the United States or Canada and spend the winter in Mexico, Central America, South America or the Caribbean—are most vulnerable as they undertake their grueling, long-distance flights during the spring and fall. Throughout these marathon journeys, the birds are threatened by everything from predators and loss of habitat (critical for refueling and rest stops) to communication towers, high-rise buildings and cars. Some studies suggest that as many as half of all migrating birds never make it to their final destinations.

If you’d like to help Neotropical migrants, the American Bird Conservancy provides a list of ways to help migratory birds in and around your home. Among the conservancy’s top tips:

1. Keep your cat indoors. This is best for your cat as well as for the birds, as indoor cats live an average of three to seven times longer. Even well-fed cats kill birds, and bells on cats don’t effectively warn birds of cat strikes.
2. Prevent birds from hitting windows by using a variety of treatments to the glass on your home.
3. Eliminate pesticides from your yard. Even those pesticides that are not directly toxic to birds can pollute waterways and reduce insects that birds rely on for food.
4. Create backyard habitat. Establish a diverse landscape by planting native grasses, flowers, trees and shrubs that attract and nurture native birds.

Last weekend, I was thrilled to learn that seed from my backyard feeder was giving sustenance to a migrating rose-breasted grosbeak. As an NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat^®, my yard also provides grosbeaks and other migrants—as well as year-round residents—with water, cover and a variety of native plants brimming with tasty bugs and berries.

Explore More

• Find out how gardeners can help migrating birds and butterflies by cultivating fall-blooming plants that provide food and places to rest.
• Learn how scientists studying migratory birds are discovering surprising new records for distance and physical endurance.
• Read about threats facing birds and other migratory species.
• See top birders’ recommendations for the best places to watch birds during fall migration.
• Get 10 Tips for attracting migratory birds to your yard this fall.

Learn more about attracting wildlife to your garden and how to create a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat^® >>