Common Backyard Birds

Meet your new neighbors

When you move into a new neighborhood, you might go around to your surrounding neighbors and introduce yourself, to get to know the people in your community. When you feed birds or offer them some other attractant, the concept is the same - you probably want to get to know who will be visiting and living in your backyard. There are so many different types of birds in the world that it can be hard to figure out which ones have chosen your garden as home. Get to know some of the common backyard birds in your area and the next time you see a bird at your feeder, you'll be able to call it by its name.

North America is home to some 2000 bird species and chances are, you will find some of them at your feeder. To really get into birdwatching, you should invest in a special type of bird book known as a field guide. This book will identify the bird by its name and will often include a picture and written imitation of the bird call so that you can identify the bird in the wild. Often, it will include some information about the bird's habitat and breeding habits so that you know where to find it and when not to disturb it.

There are a few ways to identify a bird in your backyard if you are not sure what it is:

• By sight - make sure you have a picture of both the male and female birds so that you won't misidentify the species
• By song - there are many different sound files of birdcalls you could hear at any time of the day or night. If you have a tape or CD of bird sounds, or want to download some from the Internet, you will be able to identify all the birds who sing in your yard.
• By feeding habits - some birds are ground feeders, others perch or feed from a tube feeder. Knowing how common backyard birds feed will help you to identify any you may be confused about.

Some common backyard birds include:

• American goldfinch
• Baltimore oriole
• Cardinal
• Robin
• House finch
• Chickadee
• Red-winged blackbird
• Crow
• House sparrow
• Ruby-throated hummingbird
• Purple martin
• Nuthatch
• Blue jay
• Grackle
• Mourning dove
• House wren
• Barn swallow
• Eastern bluebird

In order to attract these and other birds to your yard, it helps to research their feeding and nesting habits. This will help you decide what kinds of food you want to put in your feeders and if you want to set up any bird houses.