Plus de photos

multiple species (Passeriformes)

Birds eat ripe berries in mid-to-late summer; major fruit resource.

Brown thrasher, purple finch, eastern towhee, northern mockingbird, and northern bobwhite are among the many birds documented feeding on the berries (NC State Extension, Missouri Botanical Garden); the fruit is the plant headline wildlife value.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center notes the dark drupes are relished by many bird species; Missouri Botanical Garden lists the showy fruit as attracting birds. Late-summer elderberry fruit is a heavily used songbird food.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents that berries attract many bird and small-mammal species, and that the tree also provides cover and nesting sites; persistent winter fruit feeds songbirds when other food is scarce.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the fruit attracting a variety of birds; a range of eastern songbirds feed on the sweet ripe fruit alongside foxes, opossums, raccoons, skunks, and deer.

The red plums are consumed by many kinds of birds, and the suckering, thicket-forming habit provides valuable nesting cover (Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center; Missouri Botanical Garden lists the species as attracting birds).

Birds eat ripe berries in mid-to-late summer; major fruit resource.

Brown thrasher, purple finch, eastern towhee, northern mockingbird, and northern bobwhite are among the many birds documented feeding on the berries (NC State Extension, Missouri Botanical Garden); the fruit is the plant headline wildlife value.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center notes the dark drupes are relished by many bird species; Missouri Botanical Garden lists the showy fruit as attracting birds. Late-summer elderberry fruit is a heavily used songbird food.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents that berries attract many bird and small-mammal species, and that the tree also provides cover and nesting sites; persistent winter fruit feeds songbirds when other food is scarce.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the fruit attracting a variety of birds; a range of eastern songbirds feed on the sweet ripe fruit alongside foxes, opossums, raccoons, skunks, and deer.

The red plums are consumed by many kinds of birds, and the suckering, thicket-forming habit provides valuable nesting cover (Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center; Missouri Botanical Garden lists the species as attracting birds).

Multiple thrush, mockingbird, oriole, and waxwing species feed on ripe raspberries - gardeners often net plantings to compete for the harvest.

Fallen and unharvested apples are eaten by songbirds and other wildlife through fall and winter; the fruit is a common late-season food source in and around orchards.

Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder lists Prunus armeniaca as attracting birds; the ripe summer drupes are taken by songbirds.

Late-ripening fruit that holds on bare branches into winter is available to generalist fruit-eating songbirds and to dropped-fruit foragers; the Missouri Botanical Garden documents the fruit persistence but does not enumerate wildlife species.

NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox notes that bay laurel trees attract birds (songbirds); the single-seeded purple-black berries borne on pollinated female plants are the likely draw. Bay laurel is a non-native Mediterranean plant, so this is a generic ornamental bird-attraction note rather than a documented North American native-wildlife association.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center records that birds and other wildlife eat the fruit; the late-summer plums are a coastal food source for songbirds.

Berries persist through winter providing late-cold-season forage.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the fruit as consumed by 33 species of birds and many mammals - one of the highest fruit-value native trees of the eastern forest.

NC State documents broader songbird consumption (robins, etc.). Black chokeberry berries hold on the plant longer than serviceberry and dogwood drupes - extending the fall food supply into late autumn.

Dark-blue drupes are a fall-migration energy source for thrushes, robins, mockingbirds, and other migrants.

Songbirds eat the ripe berries and disperse the seed - a key vector of its spread into wild land.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents that birds (along with bears, deer, elk, and moose) feed on the drupes, and both LBJ and Missouri Botanical Garden flag the showy fruit as attractive to birds. (Plotwright has no western-songbird-specific wildlife entity yet; mapped to the generic songbird forager.)

Robins, catbirds, thrushes, and many other songbirds compete with cedar waxwings (and humans) for the early-summer fruit crop.

Missouri Botanical Garden lists birds as the attraction and the persistent red drupes as the food. This is the one wildlife relationship the species genuinely delivers, and it is double-edged: bird dispersal of that fruit is precisely how Chinese holly has naturalised from garden plantings into woodland in North Carolina and Alabama. The dense spiny structure also gives good nesting and escape cover.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center records the blue-black cherries as important wildlife food in July and August for numerous bird species; Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder lists the plant as attracting birds.

A range of fruit-eating songbirds feed on ripe figs; Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder notes the fruit becomes a mess if not promptly harvested, reflecting how freely it is eaten and dropped.

Missouri Botanical Garden lists the tree as attracting birds; the pea-sized nutlets and seed are eaten by songbirds, though the source does not enumerate species.

The abundant flat, papery samaras ripen and fall in early-to-mid spring, an unusually early seed crop that finches and other small songbirds pick at; graded plausible because the foraging is opportunistic rather than a dedicated specialist tie.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the nuts as eaten by birds and squirrels and lists the shrub as attracting birds; the dense suckering thickets also provide cover and nesting habitat for songbirds.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the seed-bearing pods as having food value to songbirds and small mammals, and lists the tree as attracting birds.

Goldfinches + other finches feed heavily on the seeds inside the spiky pods through winter.

Finches feed on seeds released from the breaking-up spherical seed balls through winter.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents wildlife value as cover, nesting sites, foraging substrate for insectivorous birds, and seed for granivorous birds and small mammals; Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder notes it attracts birds.

The Wildflower Center records songbirds taking the seed. The pulse is short and predictable - the cones shatter in September and release winged seed over a few weeks - so it is an autumn resource rather than a persistent winter one, unlike the berry crops elsewhere in this catalog.

Provides cover for at least 24 songbird species and nesting sites or seed for Grasshopper Sparrow, Henslow's Sparrow, Sedge Wren, and Western Meadowlark (Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center).

Jays, woodpeckers and wild turkey take the acorns, and jay caching is a genuine dispersal mechanism that moves acorns well uphill of the parent tree. The canopy is also heavily used for nesting and insect foraging.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents black willow as an early-season harvest for songbirds, waterfowl, and small mammals; the bark, tender twigs, and buds are also browsed by deer, rabbits, and beaver.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents blue grama seed as forage for granivorous birds; Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder also flags the plant as attracting birds.

The persistent winter samaras are eaten by finches, grosbeaks and other seed-eating birds; the same winter persistence that feeds squirrels makes this a reliable cold-season bird food.

Ripe plantain seed is a documented food for ground-foraging songbirds and small seed-eaters; cited generically rather than to one species.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center records bur oak as attracting songbirds and ground birds; its large acorns are an important fall and winter mast food for fruit- and nut-eating birds.

Wild turkey, jays and woodpeckers all take the acorns, though at up to an inch and a quarter they are large enough that smaller birds cannot handle them whole. The canopy is heavily used for nesting and insect foraging.

The three-quarter-inch acorns are small enough for wild turkey, jays and woodpeckers to take whole. The open high crown is well used for nesting and for insect foraging.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents coast live oak attracting Oak Titmouse, Western Scrub Jay, Steller's Jay, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and about 30 other bird species, which feed on the acorns and shelter in the dense evergreen canopy. This generic entry now stands in only for the rest of that assemblage; Steller's jay has its own record below.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and NC State Extension both list Viola sororia as attracting birds/songbirds, which forage on its abundant seed.

NC State notes "fruit is eaten by small mammals and birds" and "wild turkeys eat the seeds." The explosive seed-ejection mechanism distributes seed widely.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the seeds as forage for granivorous birds and the tree as a source of nesting material and browse; LBJ flags it as attracting birds.

NC State notes "Songbirds and small mammals occasionally eat the seeds" from the persistent bean-like pods that remain on winter branches.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents American arborvitae as providing food and cover for birds; its dense, ground-to-crown evergreen foliage is valued as nesting habitat and winter shelter, and the small seed cones provide seed.

Dense evergreen structure is genuinely useful winter cover and nesting habitat, and this is the honest extent of the tree's contribution: it offers shelter rather than a food web. The caterpillar fauna that native pines support does not transfer to an introduced species.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center lists black walnut as attracting birds; the large canopy provides cover and nesting structure for songbirds (the hard-shelled nuts themselves are eaten mainly by squirrels and other strong-jawed mammals rather than songbirds).

The dense, year-round evergreen canopy offers nesting and roosting cover for songbirds, as large broadleaf evergreens generally do; this is a plausible generic shelter association rather than a documented tie for any specific bird, since the species is a West Coast native outside the typical Eastern range of these generic songbirds.

NC State Extension reports that Camellia japonica attracts songbirds and provides cover for wintering birds - its dense evergreen canopy gives shelter in the cold season when deciduous plants are bare.

Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder notes the shrub provides shelter and nesting sites for birds and wildlife; its dense evergreen thickets offer year-round cover.

The structural value outweighs the food value where this species is planted. Dense evergreen juniper foliage gives nesting cover in spring and thermal roosting cover in winter, in a period when almost nothing deciduous offers either. The obvious specialist is missing from this catalog and should be named rather than wired: the juniper hairstreak (Callophrys gryneus) is the North American butterfly that feeds exclusively on Cupressaceae foliage, but its documented hosts are Juniperus virginiana and the western junipers, and its use of planted J. chinensis is not well established.

Evergreen fronds provide ground-level cover for songbirds through winter - the canonical winter-shelter native ground cover in eastern hardwood-forest understory.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center records the species as valuable wildlife cover. The dense, stiff, low-sweeping branches give year-round nesting and roosting shelter and winter thermal cover, which is the main wildlife value of a planted specimen outside the native range.

The sharply prickly whorled needles make a dense low thicket that a cat or a hawk cannot easily work, which is why common juniper carries so much nesting and roosting use for its size. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center also records the cones as food for grouse, pheasant and bobwhite - ground birds, using the same plant as cover and larder at once.

Dense multi-stem habit provides songbird nesting cover.

The dense, year-round evergreen crown and low, sweeping branches offer nesting and roosting cover for songbirds, as large planted conifers generally do; the tie is plausible as a generic dense-evergreen-shelter association rather than a documented specialist relationship for this introduced Himalayan species.

The dense, year-round evergreen canopy provides nesting and roosting cover for many woodland songbirds, and the cones contribute winter seed; hemlock is a well-documented shelter and food tree for eastern forest birds.

The structural value is as large as the food value here and lasts all year. A dense multi-stemmed thicket with twigs at every height is nesting and escape cover that a single-stemmed shrub cannot provide, and the Wildflower Center records the species as used for wildlife habitat and erosion control. This is the payoff for tolerating the suckering: a gray dogwood colony is habitat in a way that a well-behaved specimen shrub is not.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center lists wildlife uses of cover and nesting sites; the open thorny canopy of wild trees provides nesting and shelter structure for birds.

Jack pine barrens carry a distinctive bird community, and the most specific case in North America belongs here: Kirtland's warbler nests almost exclusively in dense stands of young jack pine under about twenty feet, in northern Michigan. That habitat exists for roughly a decade after fire or harvest, which is why the species is managed by deliberately creating young stands. Kirtland's warbler does not yet have its own entry in this catalog.

Dense fronds provide ground-cover shelter for small birds + amphibians.

Mature open-crowned pines are the nesting substrate for a large part of the southeastern bird community, and standing dead loblolly is prime woodpecker excavation habitat. Pine seed feeds nuthatches, chickadees and finches through the winter.

The dense, low, year-round evergreen mass gives ground-level nesting and roosting shelter and winter thermal cover - the main wildlife function of a planted mugo pine, and a genuinely useful one in an exposed garden where cover at that height is scarce.

The dense, year-round evergreen crown and low, sweeping branches provide well-documented nesting and roosting cover for many songbirds, and planted Norway spruce stands and windbreaks are classic shelterbelt habitat across the northern U.S. and Canada.

The structural value is the reliable one. A dense, narrowly conical evergreen with short-jointed branching and needles packed 0,2 à 0,3 pouces apart gives thermal and escape cover through winter that a deciduous tree cannot, and this species holds its foliage tighter than most spruce. Two specialists that would belong here have no entry in this wildlife catalogue and so are named in prose rather than wired: the spruce spider mite (Oligonychus ununguis), the pest that most often decides whether the tree succeeds, and the eastern spruce gall adelgid (Adelges abietis), which makes the pineapple-shaped shoot-base galls found on planted spruce.

Northern conifer stands support nesting warblers, kinglets, nuthatches and chickadees, and the seed feeds finches through winter. An older red pine stand with some structural variation is far more valuable than a young even-aged plantation.

Plotwright. (n.d.). Passereaux de l'Est (multi-espèces) (multiple species (Passeriformes)). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/eastern-songbirds-generic