Fall plant buffet

Birds love a friendly yard. Supply them with food and shelter, and all of a sudden, your garden rates as a first-class smorgasbord. Even as summer gardens wane, there are still plenty of fall berry-producing shrubs, gone-to-seed perennials, and fruit-bearing trees to welcome migratory flocks and resident birds. By growing a mix of plantings that fit the birds' menus, you will soon spy aviary friends, such as sunny goldfinches feeding on left-standing coneflowers and red flashes of cardinals supping on viburnum and spicebush berries. Black-masked cedar waxwings will arrive en masse, congregating on winterberry shrubs to pluck its berrylike fruits. And, if the fates are smiling, red-crested pileated woodpeckers may drop by to drum on pine and sumac trunks as they forage for insects beneath the bark.

"Once birds find out that you're growing berries, fruit-eaters will come in flocks," says Craig Tufts, chief naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation. "Birds also go crazy over seeds in the fall, so it's important to leave seed heads of plants, such as coneflowers, perennial sunflower, and cup plant, standing. And, evergreens are a living pantry! Some produce berrylike fruits; the cones offer seeds, and along with the trunk's scaly bark, house overwintering insects."

Although no one can predict which birds will stop in, chances for observing an array of birds improve in landscapes planted with native plants.

"It is always a good idea to plant so that fruit and other foods are available to birds throughout the year," says Stephen Kress, vice president of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society. "Native landscapes provide food at the right times - times coinciding with migration patterns. Native plants are adapted to the environment, so they will last longer, require less water, and draw fewer pests."

Kress, author of The Audubon Society Guide to Attracting Birds, notes that landscape-planning gardeners should take design cues from Mother Nature. Birds congregate in environments featuring multitiered, densely packed arrangements of tall deciduous and evergreen trees; understory fruiting shrubs and vines; and ground-level grasses and perennial borders. As in woodlands and meadows, where gaps between canopy and earth are few, compact plant arrangements provide birds with protected nesting, roosting, and feeding sites.

Migratory birds leave northernmost climates in mid-August and head southward to find more-temperate wintering sites. Southern migration peaks in September, concluding by mid-October. Diversely planted landscapes satisfy the needs of resident birds as well as those passing through in spring and fall. Plants that hold seeds, berries, and insects through cold weather sustain overwintering birds. Insect- and seedeaters may munch on berries, while fruit-loving birds may nibble on seeds if they're more accessible. And evergreens can provide much-needed coverage. Thoughtfully planted terrains can continually draw droves of indigenous and visiting birds.

"Birds are creatures of habit," Kress says. "Create a good habitat and the birds will return year after year. And you'll attract more birds because birds flying over will spot the feeding activity and stop over, too."