Julie

I live in New Hampshire and am new to both birding and native gardening.  I became interested in birding through watching live safaris online, and they often do spots of birding.  I thought, if they have such variety of birds in South Africa, all of our birds here can't just be brown and boring.  So I started watching the birds in my backyard, and have really come to be amazed at the variety we do have.  We have seen over 30 different types of birds, and are just getting started transforming the gardens and yard from a random mix of 'pretty plants' to a more intentional mix of natives.  I am hoping to keep the good parts of our property - the woods are mostly native trees and we have a few wild growing beautiful natives, such as New Jersey Tea, that I have found - and swap non-natives in my flower beds to natives, as well as hopefully add some additional gardens along the edges of the woods which are currently lacking any understory/shrub layers.  I have seen almost all of the birds that I initially had on my wish list, except for the scarlet tanager and indigo bunting.  I have also added the Cedar Waxwing and Evening Grosbeak to my wish list, as well as hopefully one day starting to discern between the many types of warblers!