Planting Trees, Shrubs, and Vines

FOR one who owns a farm, or a place with fair-sized grounds, on which he expects to live for a number of years, perhaps no greater returns in bird-life will be given than from a proper planting of trees, shrubs, and vines. A treeless and shrubless locality means a more or less birdless locality. These are essential to furnish nesting-sites and shelter for most of our common birds. These plantings may serve a threefold purpose - to furnish shelter, nesting-sites, and food for the birds - in addition to serving their purpose of ornamentation.

Plants for Shelter. - While all trees furnish some shelter for birds, the coniferous trees are specially valuable for this purpose on account of the retention of their foliage during the cold months, which furnishes some protection against the winter storms, and serves as a favorite roost-ing-place during the long cold nights. Windbreaks of any kind of trees may also serve as shelter. And the smaller plants, too, such as tangles of shrubs and vines, furnish retreats for many of the smaller birds when pursued by hawks; and serve as shelter for winter birds.

Plants for Nesting-sites. - While occasionally some birds seem to show a preference for some particular kind of tree or shrub in which to place their nests, usually it is a question of the general locality, with its surroundings and the food and protection given, which decides the bird in its selection of a nesting-site. So that those plants which will best serve the purpose of food and shelter will also furnish nesting-sites. A number of trees and tangles of shrubbery, thickly overgrown with vines, furnish the needed conditions for nesting-sites, provided the other factors are favorable.

In selecting trees we should not forget the elm, from whose graceful limbs the oriole so often hangs its swinging nest. If hedges are substituted for fences they may furnish nesting-sites, and at the same time serve as a means of ornamentation.

Experiments in Germany. - Baron von Ber-lepsch has carried on some very successful experiments in Germany in planting shrubs and trees to serve especially as nesting-sites. In his shelter woods the area is first planted to shrubs, with trees scattered through them. These are allowed to grow for a few years, and then cut back and pruned so as to make whorls of branches to furnish foundations for nests. In the wood at Seebach, this treatment has proved eminently successful, as large numbers of birds nest in these growths, locating their nests chiefly in these whorls. In a similar way evergreens and avenues of trees are pruned to form whorl-shaped ramifications. Bushes with small stems are tied together to form crotches, and out of fifty bushes thus tied, forty-seven were occupied the first year. The Baron's experiences all indicate that the number of nesting birds may be largely increased by furnishing suitable crotches and nesting-places in shrubs and trees. It is certainly worth while to experiment along these lines in tangles of shrubbery, by pruning the bushes or tying them together so as to form crotches available for nesting-sites.