What plants are worth growing to attract birds?
When researching my book The Bird Garden, I browsed the pages of the massively huge and comprehensive volumes of The Birds of the Western Palearctic. It lists the foods eaten by every species and a very wide variety of plants are mentioned. Some plants appear to attract a wide variety of birds but this does not mean that a plant is commonly eaten by birds. Sometimes the listing referred to a single observation. I would grow only a few plants with the hope that they would significantly attract birds into the garden or contribute to their nutrition. But it is difficult to give a comprehensive list because there are local preferences: plants attacked avidly in one neighbourhood may be shunned in another. My suggestion is: Berries of cotoneaster, pyracantha, bird cherry, elder, ivy. Seeds of teazel, lemon balm, lavender, clover, dandelion, sunflower. I would grow other plants for their horticultural interest and be delighted if I found birds feeding on them.
