New Hampshire, like many corners of the United States, is home to a massive variety of bird species, many of which live very close to many towns and cities across the state.
This makes New Hampshire (NH) a very popular spot for many bird watchers and amateur biologists and zoologists.
However, if you’re going to be trying to observe wild birds in NW, it’s no good simply piling up the birdseed and hoping that they will come to you.
Feeding and attracting birds to your location takes a lot of skill and practice.
However, with the notes that we have collected here, you may find your bird feeding strategies improving, and the many beautiful species that you can find here!
Finding The Right Seeds
Okay, we may have bashed the idea of simply feeding the birds to come to you in the intro, but it is genuinely a decent strategy to get plenty of bird species to come to your favorite spot or garden.
After all, all birds will need to land to feed, so making sure that there is food in your garden for them can go a long way to making your garden more appealing to birds to land in.
The trick will be t have the right foods at the ready that birds will enjoy.
For our money, we would suggest having sunflower seeds as your food of choice for your birds.
These little seeds are high in calories and are edible for most species of birds that you will find in NH. From doves to sparrows, to finches, all of these species and more can safely eat sunflower seeds.
If you take nothing else away from this guide, remember that sunflowers are the bird seed of choice that you should be going with for feeding wild birds in your garden.
Diversity Of Food
Following up on the last point, almost as important as having the ‘right’ food for birds is having a variety of different foods for birds to snack on as they enter your garden.
After all, while many bird species can feed on sunflower seeds, doesn’t mean that it is the ideal food for all bird species, or even on this seed in the first place.
Birds eat a variety of different foods, so if you want to attract the largest number of birds to your garden, you should also present a large variety of foods for them to eat.
The foods that you can feed birds can be things from sunflower seeds to grass or rice grains, cracked corn, to even some dried insect feed, such as mealworms.
Heck, some species of bird will even eat sweet items that are also packed full of calories, such as fruit, honey, nectar, and even jelly in some cases (that high-sugar fruit preservative is basically like gold to many fruit-eating animals)!
Providing Water
Perhaps, even more, appetizing for birds, than the prospect of food, is the chance to quench their thirst with water.
This is an excellent way to get birds to land and feed more in your garden. While what birds eat can vary from species to species, the golden rule of birds is that they all need water to survive.
So, this means getting a good birdbath or water supply for birds to potentially drink from.
You’ll want to keep the water source at least 10 feet or so away from dense trees or shrubbery, as this is where predators that hunt birds can hide themselves to prepare for an ambush.
Having it in the open also gives birds plenty of room to keep an eye on their surroundings for said predators.
You should also make sure to replace the water regularly, to make sure that water-borne bacteria and other pathogens don’t start building in the water and making the birds that drink from it ill.
Variety Of Bird Feeders
Alongside the idea of having lots of different types of food, you should also consider getting a variety of different feeders to place that food into.
These can take many forms, from simply bird feed placed on a surface in your garden, to inside a birdhouse, to hoppers to tube feeders, and so on.
For one thing, the different feeders provide different stimulation for birds that choose to feed at them.
This also allows many different birds and bird species to peacefully eat in your garden. After all, a scarcity of food in an area is the quickest way to cause competition and aggression to break out among birds and bird species.
Having these different areas will allow these otherwise intolerant species to coexist easier in your garden.
The Right Spot For Bird Feeders
Having plenty of feeders and food to fill them with is all well and good, but what good will all that work do if the birds don’t even land to feed on them?
Making sure that your birds feel comfortable enough to land and feed in your garden is a very important step to think about.
In an almost complete 180 from the situation with placing water in your garden, birds do prefer to eat in and amongst foliage and tree branches.
The trick is to keep your feeders high from the earth, as this will discourage many natural predators of birds from easily hunting them at ground level.
Don’t forget to place at least a few feeders near your window. You want to be able to see some of these birds, after all!
Keeping Your Bird Feed Topped up
This one is a pretty obvious point. Birds aren’t going to come to an empty feeder, are they?
Birds generally don’t tend to be fed exclusively from feeders, and shouldn’t starve if one is empty for a day or two.
However, if you want to make sure that birds do keep coming to your garden, and learn that your garden is a safe space for them, you should keep it filled all year round.
Keeping Away Other Animals
We’ve all likely had this scenario play out as bird lovers.
You put out your bird seeds the night before, and you leave and go about the rest of the day.
And when you come back, either later in the day or the next morning, you find a squirrel hanging from the feeder, helping itself to all those delicious sees that are most certainly NOT theirs to eat!
While it can be pretty funny to find a squirrel hanging Oceans 11-style to reach the nuts, and squirrels do also need to eat too, this is not the ideal scenario for attracting birds to your garden to view.
Especially considering that squirrels can be pretty protective of their food, scaring away other animals to keep their nuts (or in this case, seed) for themselves.
So, you’re going to need to find a way to dissuade squirrels and other animals from feeding on your bird feeders.
Baffles will generally do the trick, as will keeping your feeders just outside of jumping distance. Squirrels can jump well, but they can’t fly, after all!
Final Thoughts
So, as you can see, there are plenty of ways to entice birds into your garden, and many of them are simple or easy steps too.
We hope you find plenty of life fluttering around your garden!
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