Plant collection

Shrubs That Attract Birds

Shrubs that attract birds are the middle layer most yards lack: dense enough for cardinals and doves to nest in, and fruiting in sequence from serviceberry in early summer to winterberry in the snow.

The four below are native shrubs of the East and Midwest; growing facts are from the Wildflower Center's Native Plant Database, and the case for natives is Audubon's ¹.

Winterberry holly in fruit — shrubs that attract birds feed them from early summer to late winter — Photo: Photo by and (c)2016 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Shrubs that attract birds with berries, by season

Canada serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis) blooms white in April–May and fruits red to purple in early summer; the Wildflower Center calls it an important browse and food plant for birds ³. American elderberry (Sambucus nigra ssp. canadensis) follows in late summer with purple-black berries relished by many bird species, on a fast-growing shrub for wet ground ². Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) holds bright red fruit on bare branches through winter, and offers cover and nesting sites; it needs a male and a female plant ⁴.

A shrub for the wet corner

Common buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) takes standing water, feeds bees and butterflies with its globe flowers, and its nutlets are eaten by ducks, other water birds and shorebirds ⁵.

Beyond food, shrubs are where birds nest: Northern Cardinals nest in a fork of small branches in a sapling, shrub or vine tangle, hidden in dense foliage ⁶, and Mourning Doves nest amid dense foliage in evergreens and shrubs ⁷.

Why native plants first

Native plants are those that occur naturally in the region where they evolved, and Audubon calls them the ecological basis on which birds depend: without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive ¹. The scale matters — a native oak supports over 500 species of caterpillars where a ginkgo hosts five, and it takes more than 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees ¹. Most nursery landscaping plants are alien species, so choosing natives is the single landscaping decision with the clearest effect on bird populations ¹.

The alternative is what most yards already have. Audubon notes that manicured lawn now covers over 40 million acres of the United States as a green monoculture, that the traditional suburban lawn carries on average ten times more chemical pesticide per acre than farmland, and that the continental U.S. has lost 150 million acres of habitat and farmland to sprawl ¹. Every bed of natives that replaces turf is habitat that lawn cannot be, and long-lived native trees such as oaks and maples also store carbon ¹.

Check the native range before buying: the Wildflower Center record for this species lists the states and provinces where it occurs naturally ², and Audubon's zip-code native plant database narrows that to your area and the bird groups each plant attracts ¹. Once established, native plants generally need little maintenance and far less water than lawn, and they do not need the pesticides that make a yard poor bird habitat ¹.

Each plant above links to its own profile with the Wildflower Center's native range, so you can confirm it occurs naturally where you live before buying ¹.

More plant guides

American Elderberry →Canadian Serviceberry →Winterberry →Common Buttonbush →Cardinal Flower →Trumpet Honeysuckle →Flowering Dogwood →Common Sunflower →Native plants for birds →Berry plants for birds →Seed plants for birds →Nectar plants for birds →Shelter plants for birds →

Frequently asked questions

What shrubs attract the most birds?

Berry shrubs that fruit in sequence — serviceberry, elderberry, winterberry — with dense growth for nesting ³²⁴.

Which shrubs feed birds in winter?

Winterberry holly: its red fruit remains on the branches throughout winter ⁴.