Passport to Texas

You never know who will show up at your backyard birdbath.

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This is Passport to Texas

Attracting birds to your backyard is as simple as adding water…to a birdbath.

They’ll use that birdbath year-round. They’ll use it for drinking. They’ll use it for bathing…

Cliff Shackelford is a non-game ornithologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. Decorative ceramic birdbaths often make better art than they do watering stations for birds.

The simpler the better. What I found, is the basin needs to be a little rough and not smooth. It needs to have a gradual dip to it.

Dripping water is something birds will appreciate, too, says Cliff Shackelford.

Bird drips are really good; you can hang a milk jug up with a little pin prick hole in it. Just the sound of the water dripping could be attractive to birds. And also, they may like to get under that drip a little bit.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says a good birdbath mimics shallow puddles, which are nature’s birdbaths. They suggest digging a shallow hole in the ground, lining it with plastic to make it watertight, and then putting sand in the bottom so birds can get their footing. Place a few plants around the perimeter, and you have a bird spa.

Find more birding information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.