Window and Balcony Bird Habitat

Attracting Birds When You Have No Yard or Garden

© Rosemary Drisdelle

May 2, 2007
Birders who have only a window or a small apartment balcony may still be able to attract a few birds to their tiny habitat.

If you like birds but have no property to build backyard bird habitat, you just might be able to enjoy a few birds from your window or apartment balcony. Every situation is different—think about what you can do with yours.

Attracting birds to windows

If all you have is a window at ground level or even a few stories up, you may be able to attract birds if you can either open the window or access it from outside safely and easily. Here are some things you might do:

  • Buy a birdfeeder with suction cup attachments that can be stuck right on the glass. These usually come as a screw-on seed tray and suction cups that can be attached to a two litre pop bottle. You fill the bottle with seed, screw on the seed tray instead of a bottle cap, attach the suction cups, turn the whole thing upside down and stick it on the window. These feeders do sometimes fall off, so don’t hang one if it’s likely to hit a person or fragile objects if it falls!
  • Birds will often visit a feeding tray attached to an exterior windowsill. If you can open the window, it’s easy to put food on the tray. To avoid frightening birds away, let them get used to your presence slowly. Keep drapes closed at first and gradually open them and allow the birds to see more and more of you. At times, they may not be able to see you at all if the window is reflecting the outside scenery, including themselves, back at them—in this situation you may have to take precautions if birds are hitting or attacking your window.
  • If there are wooden structures outside the window that you can screw things into, you might hang a bird feeder, birdbath, nesting box, nesting shelf, hanging flower basket or window box. Window boxes and flowerpots can be planted with fflowers attractive to hummingbirds, but birds have also been known to nest in the tops of these miniature gardens. Again, be sure anything you hang is secure so it won’t fall, and if you’re lucky enough to have breeding birds move in, be careful when you water the plants!
  • A wide windowsill, particularly a protected one such as a window guarded by security bars, sometimes attracts nesting birds. Robins, phoebes, pigeons, swallows, and other birds may nest in a window recess. If you think your windowsill is a good one for this, try leaving some nesting materials outside the window to attract nesting birds.
  • Even in big cities, wide ledges high up on buildings sometimes attract nesting falcons in the early spring, and other birds such as gulls, starlings, blackbirds and many others will nest on rooftops. Other birds roost on rooftops and high in trees: if you’re living high above the ground, take a close look at the buildings and rooftops in your vicinity—you might be surprised by the bird life there.

Balcony Bird Habitat

An apartment balcony is much more versatile than a window, and all the suggestions for windows will work for balconies as well depending on your situation. Here, there may be special opportunities for attracting nesting birds because balconies are usually more sheltered and there are more locations to hang and attach things. As with windows, be sure not to hang anything that might fall on someone or something below you.


The copyright of the article Window and Balcony Bird Habitat in Bird Watching is owned by Rosemary Drisdelle. Permission to republish Window and Balcony Bird Habitat in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.




Post this Article to facebook Add this Article to del.icio.us! Digg this Article furl this Article Add this Article to Reddit Add this Article to Technorati Add this Article to Newsvine Add this Article to Windows Live Add this Article to Yahoo Add this Article to StumbleUpon Add this Article to BlinkLists Add this Article to Spurl Add this Article to Google Add this Article to Ask Add this Article to Squidoo

Comments
Mar 2, 2009 8:15 AM
Guest :
Thanks for the advice. I have a a little suet cage on my balcony and I always have plants and flowers out there (mostly functional herbs and vegetables) but aside from the pesky pigeons which I see plenty of at ground level, my top floor balcony only gets very rare visits. There is a falcon nesting on the building across from us though, and he and a smaller owl have been giving us quite a show this spring, especially if we're up early enough.
1 Comment: