How to attract · guide

How to Attract Birds That Eat Yard Pests

How to attract birds that eat yard pests starts with a number from Audubon: 96 percent of land birds rely on insects to feed their chicks ³. The birds are already hunting; the job is to give them cover, water, dead wood and a pesticide-free yard.

Diets below are from All About Birds species accounts ⁴⁵⁶⁷ and Audubon's field guide ⁸; habitat advice is Audubon's ³; feeders and safety from FeederWatch and All About Birds ¹².

Black-capped chickadee — an insect-eater that shows how to attract birds that eat yard pests — Photo: Dawn Huczek from USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The birds that eat yard pests, and the pests they take

Black-capped Chickadees eat 80–90 percent insects and spiders outside winter ⁴. Tufted Titmice eat caterpillars, beetles, ants, wasps, stink bugs and treehoppers in summer ⁵. Downy Woodpeckers eat beetle larvae in wood and bark, ants and caterpillars, including pest species — corn earworm, tent caterpillars, bark beetles and apple borers — and in late summer hammer goldenrod galls for the larva inside ⁶. American Robins take earthworms, insects and snails from lawns ⁷. Eastern Bluebirds feed on crickets, grasshoppers, beetles and many other insects, dropping from a low perch to the ground ⁸.

How to attract birds that eat yard pests: habitat, not bait

Lay off the pesticides — a bird-friendly garden is a bug-friendly garden, and a diversity of native plants attracts the birds, frogs, bats and predatory insects that keep plant-eating bugs in check ³. Robins in particular are vulnerable to pesticide poisoning because they forage on lawns ⁷. Plant the natives that host caterpillars — oaks, willows, birches, maples, goldenrod, milkweed, sunflowers ³ — and leave fallen leaves, which shelter the moth pupae baby birds eat, and dead trees and branches for cavity nesters ³.

Add perches and water: bluebirds hunt from low perches over open ground ⁸, and a bird bath with a dripper draws every insect-eater on the list ¹. Suet is the feeder food for insect-eating birds ¹ and holds chickadees, titmice and woodpeckers through winter so they are on site when the caterpillars hatch.

Keep the birds you attract safe: windows, cats, clean feeders

Window collisions kill perhaps a billion or more birds a year in North America, and far more die at homes and low-rise buildings than at high-rises simply because there are so many of them ². Older rules about safe feeder-to-window distances are no longer thought valid; the fix is to make the glass visible — markings spaced no more than 2 inches apart on the outside, exterior screens, or hanging cords ¹².

Cats are the most numerous pet in North America and kill hundreds of millions of birds each year; ground-feeding birds, ground-nesting birds and fledglings are at greatest risk, and feeder birds are easy prey, so FeederWatch strongly recommends keeping cats indoors ¹. Clean seed and suet feeders every week or two — more often in heavy use or wet weather — with warm water and dish soap, since leftover seed and hulls harbor pathogens ¹.

More attraction guides

Attract birds to your yard →Attract birds to a feeder →Attract birds to a new feeder →Attract birds to a bird bath →Attract birds without a feeder →Bird calls to attract birds →Attract birds to your hand →Attract birds in winter →Balcony birding →Attract birds to a birdhouse →How to attract american goldfinches →How to attract northern cardinals →How to attract black-capped chickadees →How to attract ruby-throated hummingbirds →How to attract baltimore orioles →How to attract bluebirds →All guides →

Frequently asked questions

Which birds eat the most garden pests?

Chickadees, titmice, downy woodpeckers, robins and bluebirds — caterpillars, beetles, borers, grubs and grasshoppers between them ⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸.

Do birds control insects in a yard?

They help — 96 percent of land birds feed insects to chicks — but only in a yard that is not sprayed, since pesticides remove their food and poison the birds ³⁷.