Dandelions are beautiful and essential wildflowers.
Their is an increasing awareness about how important dandelions are for wildlife.
Dandelions are one of the first wildflowers of the year to bloom, which makes them an important food source for animals.
Dandelions are important for many different animals, including - bees, hover flies, beetles, and, birds. In previous posts, we've looked at the importance of dandelions when it comes to bees, hover flies and other pollinators, but, in this post, we are going to look at the importance of dandelions for birds.
Dandelions are important for birds because they are a source of food for birds - birds eat the seeds of dandelions, which is why creating a space for dandelions in your garden will help birds.
Letting dandelions go to seed (when they change from the flower to the white seed head), you will be giving birds a natural source of food.
There are many ways you can create a space for dandelions in your garden, here are a few tips and ideas for including dandelions in your garden -
. Make your garden lawn into a mini wildflower meadow
. Create a dandelion corner in your garden
. Keep an area of your garden wild
. Plant dandelion seeds in plant pots
These are just some ways that you can include dandelions in your garden. The dandelions will benefit you too as they are edible, can be used as food and drinks and they can be used to make natural cosmetics etc.
The dandelions will also benefit wildlife too and help us to rewild the world and our garden. There are different species of birds that eat dandelion seeds, one of those species of birds that eat dandelions is the house sparrow.
Sadly, house sparrows have seen big declines in recent times, so if you help to create a space for dandelions in your garden, you will be helping house sparrows. The decline in house sparrows in just the last few decades has been massive everywhere, in North America house sparrows have decline by 84%! In Europe it has been 60%, and in the UK it has been a 71% decline!
With such massive declines in house sparrows in recent times, our gardens have never been more important, creating a space for wildlife in our gardens, and creating wildlife-friendly gardens, such as letting dandelions grow in your garden, will help wildlife, including birds like house sparrows.
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