UW Press: Birdscaping in the Midwest

Birdscaping in the Midwest
A Guide to Gardening with Native Plants to Attract Birds
Mariette Nowak
Foreword Peter H. Raven

“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

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, web sites, organizations, and native plant nurseries.

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 and before her retirement, she was director of the Wehr Nature Center, a unit of the Milwaukee County Parks in Wisconsin.

“About once a year, I receive a book purporting to help birders design a landscape to attract birds. This is the first book that delivers fully on that promise [with] hands-on projects explained by someone who has dirt under her fingernails.”
—Jim Williams, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“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

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Of Related Interest
Birds of Wisconsin Revised Edition Owen J. Gromme, with an Introduction by Samuel D. Robbins Jr.