Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
This triptych showcases three species of plants that provide a reliable food source to birds, insects and other animals through winter months when food can be scarce. After these plants have died, the seedheads offer nutrients to winter foragers, and often times offer shelter to insects and smaller animals. These plant species are an excellent addition to your garden to help wildlife in the colder months, and are best left alone (not cleared and weeded out from your garden!) until spring.
‘Breakfast’
Breakfast pictures a female house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) perched atop an orpine (Hylotelephium telephium) plant. Orpine provides seeds for finches, chickadees, grosbeaks, siskins, and other seed eating birds.
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‘Lunch’
Lunch illustrates a male northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) sitting on the edge of a giant sunflower (Helianthus giganteus). Sunflowers can feed cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches and red-bellied woodpeckers, among many birds.
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‘Dinner’
Dinner portrays a black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) resting on the branch of great mullein (Verbascum thapsus). Mullein seeds are commonly favored by finches, chickadees and downy woodpeckers, and its structure also lends itself well to housing overwintering insects such as ladybugs.
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