Providing water

Like all living creatures, birds need water. While some moisture can be extracted from food, most birds need to drink every day in summer. As we know, birds also bathe in water every day. Birds use water to clean feathers of dust and parasites. After splashing around in the water, the bird will flutter to a branch, fluff out its feathers and dry out. Then it will carefully preen each feather, adding a protective coat of oil secreted by a gland at the base of the tail.

For these reasons, a dependable source of water is attractive to most birds. In fact, you may see birds at the bath that don't eat seed and would not visit a feeder. Providing water improves your backyard habitat and provides you with great fun to watch bird behavior.

A good bird bath mimics shallow puddles. Most birds provide to bathe in water up to their thighs so look for a bath that is not too deep. Style does not mean much to the birds. They are just looking for the water. We, however, want a bath that will look good in our gardening scheme, as well as attract birds. Ideally the bath should be one that is easily cleaned. Cleaning the bath daily also discourages mosquitoes. Baths that are dirty are of no benefit to the birds.

Baths should slope gently to allow the birds to wade into the water to the depth they prefer. You can imitate a natural puddle by placing a low bath at ground level, but be wary of cats. A bath with a pedestal of a hanging bath 2 or 3 feet off the ground gives birds a fighting chance to get away. The wet bird must be able to flutter to a limb where it can preen and dry off. The bath should not be so close to shrubbery so as to conceal a crouching predator.

A good way to make the bath even more attractive to birds is to provide some sort of gentle motion on the water's surface. Water dripping or circulating in the basin watches the bird's attention. Well offer "Water Wigglers" that create motion, run on batteries and are silent, with does not disturb the birds. One battery usually lasts most of the summer.

The key to attracting large numbers of birds is to keep the bath filled with fresh water. If you are trying to make your backyard a better place for birdlife, few things are more attractive than a well-maintained bath.