Backyard birding is a fun hobby that can be lots of fun for you and be beneficial for birds in urban and suburban areas. Some may be on the fence about finally getting into this hobby but maybe these 9 photos will inspire you to either pick up backyard birding as a hobby or inspire you to put up more items in your yard to attract more birds.
This blog is all about inspirational backyard birding photos.
Backyard Birding Photos to Inspire You
1. Great Tit in a Plastic Bottle Feeder
This photo is great because it shows that backyard birding is not something that needs to break the bank. Although a lot of the items people buy for backyard birding are expensive, there are always cheaper alternatives. In fact, if you’re creative and handy with tools, you can find ways to attract birds by using materials around the house.
In this case, they used something that would have been thrown in the trash or recycling bin and turned it into a bird feeder. A hungry great tit then showed up looking for a snack.
Get creative! Birds don’t care about how pretty your backyard looks. They only care about food, shelter, water and other basic needs. Give them these basic things and the birds will show up just like they would in a rich person’s backyard.
2. Male Painted Bunting at a Unique Bird Feeder
On the other end of the spectrum for backyard birding, we have a far fancier type of bird feeder. Going cheap and do-it-yourself is great for people who want to see birds at the lowest possible costs. However, if you have a lot of disposable income, you can real fancy with your backyard birding set-up.
This feeder has been designed to look like a miniature house and has a beautiful male painted bunting visiting for food.
If you have the ability to buy more items like this and want to attract more birds, then why not pay more money? You can get a more attractive set-up for your bird visitors!
3. Pair of Rose-ringed Parakeets in Jodhpur, India.
This photo is great as it shows that you don’t need a backyard to attract birds. Here we have a pair of rose-ringed parakeets on the rooftop of a building in Jodhpur, India. This metropolitan area has a population of 2.3 million, making it an undeniably big city. As you can tell by the background, this isn’t in the exurbs or even the suburbs. It appears to be in an urban part of town.
Despite being in an urban part of the Jodhpur metropolitan area and the photographer not having any measurable backyard, they’ve still managed to attract birds. Even in one of the biggest cities in one of the most populous countries in the world, you can still get birds to show up on your property.
Here we have two parrots that are apparently visiting the rooftop of a building where someone has put out either food or water. In a location where there isn’t lots of trees or natural bodies of water, providing sustenance for birds can easily attract them in a huge metropolis.
Don’t let where you live stop you from enjoying birds!
4. Sulfur-Crest Cockatoo against a Jacaranda Tree
This photo is beautiful! It shows a sulfur-crested cockatoo sitting in a jacaranda tree in someone’s backyard. The tree on its own is already pretty but this white cockatoo contrasts nicely with this purple and green background. These cockatoos can be identified by their white bodies and yellow crests.
Cockatoos like the one in this photo are a common pet bird in aviculture. Wild ones like this can be attracted to your backyard if you live in Australia or parts of Indonesia and New Guinea.
They are not hard to attract to your backyard as they are not picky eaters and in some parts of their range are very common.
This photo also shows you a great reason to plant more trees or other plants in your backyard. They serve as a place of shelter for birds. Flowering plants can create a gorgeous backdrop when birds with contrasting plumage show up.
5. Blue Jays and Northern Cardinals in the Snow
This one gives us an amazing array of color from the birds and their background. The blue jays and the northern cardinals together give us vibrant red and blue against a backdrop of white after a winter snow.
Northern cardinals are among the birds that don’t migrate south for the winter. They also keep their same brilliant colors. Blue jays migrate but not every year. This is the sort of beautiful sight you can get if you live in North America in the right region.
6. Eastern Screech Owl
Birdhouses and nest boxes are among the best ways to get birds to your backyard. Birds that live around urban areas are looking for places to nest, just like birds in the wild. Birdhouses also give birds a place to shelter from harsher weather. Putting up just one of them will increase the number of birds you see.
It’s great getting small songbirds to visit your yard, but that’s not all there is for backyard birding. Here we have an eastern screech owl, a predatory bird, making its home in a bird house. This owl looks completely comfortable here and desperately needs some sleep.
Keep this mind when putting up your backyard birding items. Large and predatory birds will also visit if you provide them what they’re looking for.
Some predatory birds, like this eastern screech owl, is small enough to fit into standard-sized nest boxes.
7. Two Baby Birds in a Birdhouse
When I saw this picture, I couldn’t help but include it. It’s two cute baby swallows looking out from a bird house. Mom and dad are likely out getting food for them while they wait patiently for their return.
Putting up a bird house can give you the chance to see baby birds, like these ones, grow from being newborns to even seeing them during their first flight!
8. Decorative Bird Bath
This one doesn’t actually include any birds but instead it showcases a bird bath in the middle of someone’s garden. This bird bath shows how well adding a bird bath can create a unique and attractive looking backyard.
The bird bath here looks perfect in this particular garden. It almost creates a look of other-worldliness or of ancient aristocratic living.
If you’re someone who spends a lot of time on your backyard’s appearance, you may find that adding a bird bath may be just what you were looking for to fill out an empty space.
9. A Long-Tailed Sylph
Hummingbirds are a staple in backyard birding. They are small, hyper-active, beautiful and they have a unique way of feeding. Getting them to your yard will prove to be an easy task.
This photo features a long-tailed sylph, which are known for their beautiful and long tails.
If you live in South America in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru or Venezuela, then you can attract this hummingbird by planting flowering plants in your backyard or hanging up hummingbird feeders and filling them with sugar water. The same applies to other types of hummingbirds. If you live almost anywhere in the Americas, you can attract hummingbirds.
10. Young Starlings Taking a Bath Together
When you put out a bird bath in your backyard, you can expect to see these types of scenes. This photo features several young starlings taking a bath together.
These sights are quite common. Birds who often flock together will also bath together, feed together and drink together.
Yes, starlings are invasive species in North America and many don’t want them at their bird bath, but these birds are here to stay. They still make a fun and interesting visitor to your backyard.
11. Red-Tailed Hawk with Captured Prey
We’re ending this blog with one of the more graphic and possibly awe-inspiring photos. Predatory birds are among the most efficient and revered predators on Earth. Many people who don’t find birds interesting overall will admit to finding raptors enthralling.
Here we have a red-tailed hawk perched and eating its captured prey. It has decided to eat in the open, on someone’s fence post. Although a bit graphic, this is the natural order of things in the wild.
This is not one of the more common sights for backyard birding. Predatory birds like this hawk don’t have as much reason to come to your backyard as other birds. However, these types of birds can be attracted to your backyard by providing places to perch, spots to eat their prey or areas of shelter. Having large trees, where birds of this size can land will make these sights more likely.
Something as simple as a fencepost might end up attracting raptors.
Conclusion:
Hopefully, these photos have inspired you to start your backyard birding journey sooner rather than later. If you’ve already started, then hopefully, these photos can give you inspiration to expand your set-up to get even more birds visiting your property!
