ABOUT THIS BOOK

Go beyond bird feeders! Learn how to create outstanding bird habitats in your own yard with native plants that offer food, cover, and nesting sites for birds. This guide is packed with color photographs, sage advice, detailed instructions, and garden plans. It features nine different habitat gardens for hummingbirds, bluebirds, wintering birds, migrant birds, and birds that frequent prairies, wetlands, lakes, shrublands, and woodlands, along with advice about maintaining your plantings and augmenting them with nest boxes, birdbaths, misters, and perches. The information on recommended plant species includes their native ranges in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin; the birds they attract; their visual characteristics; and their cultivation. Mariette Nowak also describes how gardeners featured in this book have gone beyond their own garden gates to work for the protection and restoration of bird habitat in their neighborhoods and communities. Birdscaping in the Midwest provides many sources of further information, including publications, websites, organizations, and native plant nurseries.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Mariette Nowak is an active leader and volunteer for Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes and Lakeland Audubon Society. She is also a public speaker on landscaping, native plants, and birding. Before her retirement, she was director of the Wehr Nature Center, a unit of the Milwaukee County Parks in Wisconsin.

REVIEWS

“One of the most important things bird lovers can do is create bird habitats in their own backyards.”—David Allen Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds

“This excellent guide to bird gardening in the midwestern states provides abundant detail about how to improve the quality of backyard habitats through examples and practical plans. Mariette Nowak demonstrates that even small steps can improve local bird habitats in meaningful ways.”—Stephen Kress, vice president of bird conservation, National Audubon Society

“As much a guide to reconnecting people with the natural world as it is to providing habitat for birds. The great detail of information on plant/bird relationships will go a long way to benefiting birds and native plant species, as well as a multitude of other wildlife.”—Jim Steffen, ecologist, Chicago Botanical Garden

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1 Birds & Plants
   1 An Ancient Collaboration
   2 Going Native
   3 The Case against Exotics

Part 2 Gallery of Bird Habitat Gardens
   4 The Gardens & Gardeners

Part 3 Native Habitats for Birds: The Basics
   5 Getting Started
   6 Planning & Design
   7 Site Preparation & Planting

Part 4 Bird Habitat Gardens for Specific Birds
   8 The Hummingbird Garden
   9 The Prairie Bird Garden
   10 The Bluebird Savanna Garden
   11 The Woodland Bird Garden
   12 The Wetland Bird Garden
   13 The Migratory Bird Garden
   14 The Shrubland Bird Garden
   15 The Winter Bird Garden
   16 Bird Baths & Water Gardens

Part 5 Midwestern Plants That Attract Birds
   17 Trees, Shrubs & Vines
   18 Wildflowers, Grasses & Sedges

Part 6 Maintaining & Enhancing Your Bird Habitat Garden
   19 Garden Habitat Maintenance
   20 Supplemental Housing
   21 Supplemental Feeding
   22 Problems in Bird Habitat Gardens

Conclusion

Gardeners' Resources

Birding Organizations & Websites

Native Plant & Habitat Enhancement Organizations

Midwestern Native Plant Nurseries & Consultants

Index

About the Author

Photo Credits

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