Individual bird gardens play a vital role in conserving bird habitats.

Surprisingly, song birds eagerly accept this substitution, and our backyard bird gardens become an extension of the surrounding natural habitat.

Making your backyard into a bird garden can be the focus of many family activities. In fact, just watching and feeding songbirds is a great way for the entire family to become aware of bird conservation.

Those family members with limited mobility can still enjoy nature from the deck or patio, even a window. Imagine the impact of a bird garden for seniors and shut-ins, and for the ill or disabled.

Bird gardens are perfect natural habitat classrooms. Learning about the various bird species in your area can be very exciting.

You will need a good, easy-to-use field guide, such as Birds of North America, or Peterson's East and West. An online search for "bird field guides" will provide you with many more.

Birds are grouped according to their physical characteristics. For example, distinguishing a crow from a turkey is obvious just by looking at them.

You will find these characteristics helpful in recognizing the birds that visit your bird garden: Size - overall ; Shape of their bodies; Coloring; Specific markings; Shapes of their beaks; Shape of their wings and their feet while in flight.

Your family, especially the kids, will become experts at distinguishing bird calls. While each species is unique, most are quite obvious. A Sparrow's "chipping" is quite plain when compared to a Cardinal's lovely "trilling" song.

A natural bird habitat can actually be a neighborhood of backyards (from a bird's point of view)... and each backyard gardener contributes to the success of this unusual bird habitat.

So, the question is... what role does your backyard bird garden have in preserving natural bird habitats?

Assuming you have selected and located your plantings correctly, wild birds will be as comfortable in your backyard as they would be in the wild.

Without doubt, the answer is... you and your bird garden are enormously vital to their survival!