Even if you can’t tell the finches from the kinglets (yet), you can create a garden that will invite and nurture our feathered friends.

Every year I vow to learn more about the birds that visit my garden. I’m pretty well versed on the shore birds that populate our neighborhood on the lost island of West Seattle, the resident blue heron with its pterodactyl screech, a bald eagle—sometimes two—that perches in a towering cottonwood down the block. And, of course, seagulls and terns galore. They are an independent lot relying on a diet of fish, shellfish and the occasional French fry.

Sadly, I have a blind spot when it comes to songbirds.

I want to know the chickadees, bushtits, warblers and finches, barn swallows, wrens and the tiny ruby-crowned kinglet. To me they’re all just LBBs (little brown birds). Clearly, I am not a birder.

Read the entire story in the link below

GROW in The Seattle Times