15 Brilliant Photos That Celebrate the Link Between Birds and Native Plants

A sapphire-eyed cormorant surfaces with a bill full of seaweed. A jay strikes hard on an acorn, sending up a spray of shell. And wherever they can find them, birds gulp down all manner of juicy berries. Close observers know that avian lives are closely entwined with plants—in particular, the native species birds coevolved with for eons, which form the foundation of thriving ecosystems for all kinds of wildlife. While it’s rare to see a photograph of a bird without a plant in it, since 2019 the Audubon Photography Awards have spotlighted these connections with a special category: Plants for Birds. This year’s winner depicted an acrobatic Black-capped Chickadee feasting on broad-leaf cattail seeds, but we received many more wonderful images of birds and the plants they need. We just couldn’t keep them to ourselves. 

We hope you enjoy this gallery celebrating the native plants birds depend on to eat, nest, and rest. (For extra credit, see how many native plants you can spot in the Top 100 photos from this year’s contest.) If you’re feeling inspired to support birds where you live, check out Audubon’s native plant finder to learn which plants are best-suited to your area and the bird species they sustain and attract. If you’re a photographer, your native plant garden might even set the stage for an award-winning image—the 2025 Audubon Photography Awards are just around the corner!

Chestnut-backed Chickadee on Sitka Willow (above) 

With pops of rich red-brown feathers, the Chestnut-backed Chickadee is the most colorful of its kin—but not this colorful. The vibrant yellow hue of this individual comes from a dusting of pollen, picked up while the bird foraged among the catkins, or flower clusters, of a Sitka willow. Both bird and shrub share a similar range that hugs the West Coast from California to Southeast Alaska, and the early-blooming willow catkins—which often contain an extra treat in the form of enclosed insect larvae—provide food for small birds and mammals. Photographer Bree Jones Lang chanced upon a flittering flock beside a creek in coastal Oregon, where this pollen-painted chickadee paused just long enough for a portrait. 

Black-throated Blue Warbler on American Beautyberry 

Many warblers undertake their fall migrations in drab plumage, but male Black-throated Blue Warblers maintain their dapper looks all year long. Just as stunning: the magenta fruit of American beautyberry, a woody shrub native to the southeastern United States, northern Mexico, and the Caribbean. The berries appear in clusters in autumn and feed more than 40 species of birds. Though Black-throated Blue Warblers mainly eat insects, the small songbirds will readily feast on native fruits for extra fuel, as displayed in this image by photographer—and native plant gardener!—Don Carrier.
 

Hermit Thrush on Eastern Red Cedar 

North America’s native “cedars” aren’t really cedars, and their “berries” aren’t really berries: The conifers are actually in the cypress family, and the eastern red cedar’s dusky blue “fruit” is in fact a soft and wax-covered cone. But misnomers don’t stop birds from chowing down. Hermit Thrushes overwintering near photographer Lance Leonhardt’s home in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, flock to the cedars for their nutritious seeds (inside the berry-like cones) and to take shelter in the evergreens’ scaly foliage at a time when many other trees are bare. 
 

Black-chinned Hummingbird at Yucca 

The coevolutionary dance of hummingbirds and nectar-filled flowers is perhaps the most celebrated partnership between birds and plants, but no less spectacular for the familiarity. Photographed at sunrise by Murali Hanabe, the pas de deux feels fresh: a delicate silhouette fixed mid-air before the already blazing Texas summer sun. This species, the Black-chinned Hummingbird, is a generalist in both habitat and diet, known to drink the nectar of at least 90 species of plants, including yuccas. Flitting from bloom to bloom, they help fertilize flowers; in parts of its range the Black-chinned Hummingbird is likely the only pollinator for certain native plants.  
 

Scarlet Tanager on Common Mulberry 

Though Scarlet Tanagers tend to stick to the treetops, the fruit-laden mulberry tree in photographer Amelia Hall’s backyard lured this brilliant red male down to eye level. Every berry counts for the long-distance migrants, which need abundant calories to fly from South America to northern breeding grounds as far as 4,000 miles away. If they happen upon a rich resource along the way, the birds might pause to take advantage of the bounty: Hall’s tree in Augusta, Georgia, hosted four male tanagers for nearly a month in the midst of spring migration. 
 

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on Birch 

After weeks in a cavity nest, a fledgling Yellow-bellied Sapsucker learns from its parents how to forage sap and insects—and sometimes sap-dunked insects, perhaps the origin of the sticky thread between the two birds in this photograph by Steven Ryan. Though the woodpeckers work hard to defend the wells they drill in a variety of trees and woody plants, they inadvertently support many other species looking for an easy treat, especially Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. The shape of the well is a clue to when and why it was tapped: Round, deeper wells access thinner sap that carries water and nutrients up the tree, typically bored in early spring; once a tree’s leaves appear and photosynthesis kicks into high gear, thicker sap closer to a tree’s surface oozes more freely, flowing downward. Sapsuckers lap up the sugary liquid from shallow, roughly rectangular wells.
 

Red-winged Blackbird on a Common Sunflower 

This female Red-winged Blackbird appears triumphant with her quarry, a plump caterpillar for herself or a nearby nestling. Her perch is a common sunflower, the oil-rich seeds of which are another favored snack of the omnivorous and adaptable blackbirds. So much so, in fact, that commercial sunflower growers consider the bird a nuisance. Insects, too, are often seen as pests. But photographer David Sloas, who captured the scene near his home in Tennessee, hopes the image conveys the intimate connections between the three species—flower, bug, and bird—which all belong to the local ecosystem. He donates wildflower seeds, including sunflowers, to native landscaping projects and returns to photograph the birds the plants attract. 
 

American Crow on Sitka Mountain Ash 

Knowing the local crows’ predilection for Sitka mountain ash berries, photographer Warren Johnson was in the right place at the right time to capture this young bird’s early September fruit feast in Haines, Alaska. Though its pose looks a little rude to a human eye—don’t eat with your mouth open!—the crow’s gaping bill offers a rare opportunity to see the pink lining of its mouth, indicating a hatch-year bird. Until 2020 crows like this one, between northern Washington and southern Alaska, were classified as a separate species called Northwestern Crow, but today they are considered a subspecies of American Crow. 
 

Pine Grosbeak on Black Hawthorn 

Messy eaters never looked so good. Hawthorn berry seeds cling to the notably chunky bill of this Pine Grosbeak, pausing amid her feast. Photographer Stacy Gessler encountered a flock of the hefty finches in the woods near her home in northern Idaho, where they’re a rare sight—except when periodic irruptions send the species roving farther south in search of winter food sources. The birds lucked out with a patch of black hawthorn bushes loaded with berries, dried up but still palatable in December. Bright yellow lichen on the branches echoes the female grosbeak’s golden feathers on her head and rump. 
 

‘Apapane on Māmane 

Found nowhere in the world apart from the Hawaiian islands, the māmane tree—actually a legume—can grow to nearly 50 feet tall and bursts with rich yellow flowers in winter and spring. It is naturally tolerant of drought and fire but suffers from unchecked grazing by the feral goats and sheep widespread on the islands. Forest birds like this flame-red ‘Apapane (with a little extra color from a dusting of yellow māmane pollen) shed their usual shyness when the tree is in bloom, drinking their fill of nectar in plain view of appreciative photographers like Patrick Wardle, who snapped this picture of the honeycreeper in Maui’s Haleakalā National Park. 
 

Prairie Warbler on Pennsylvania Blackberry 

Even after leaves have fallen or withered, native plants play an important role in the landscape, including as habitat for prey species like this spider. Photographer Graham Gerdeman encountered this Prairie Warbler in a park outside Nashville, Tennessee, where it easily navigated the thorny brambles of a Pennsylvania blackberry bush, looking for a meal. If you have a yard or green space, sometimes the best thing you can do to support birds is also the easiest: Let fallen leaves lie and “dead” plants stand after the growing season. From retaining seeds and berries to housing insects, native vegetation that appears past its prime can still provide needed sustenance for migrating birds with many miles to fly. 
 

Brandt’s Cormorant With Red Algae 

Not all plants are green or even grow on land. The rust-colored fronds in the bill of this Brandt’s Cormorant are red algae, a kind of seaweed, retrieved from the depths not for a meal but as nest material. If that weren’t enough of a hint to when photographer Morgan Quimby took this portrait, look to the cormorant’s gular pouch: The expandable skin beneath its chin is vivid turquoise only during the breeding season. Males choose nest sites before pairing and are almost exclusively responsible for gathering materials, collecting (or stealing from neighbors) a variety of seaweeds as well as terrestrial mosses and grasses. When a male returns with his latest find, his mate may join him in a nest-building display, biting onto the plant and swaying as a pair before bending together to precisely arrange the offering. 
 

Common Yellowthroat on Common Milkweed 

This female yellowthroat and the milkweed she’s perched on may both be “common,” but there’s nothing mundane about the moment captured by photographer Rehna George in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The warbler rests queenlike on a delicate cupped leaf, a striking sight that seems almost impossible—until you remember she weighs just 10 grams at most, or about a third of an ounce. Milkweeds are well-known for their association with monarch butterflies, but they attract a variety of insects and spiders enticing to a hungry Common Yellowthroat like this one, ready to tuck in on her verdant throne. 
 

Mexican Jay With Acorn

A determined Mexican Jay swings forward to strike an acorn, bits of shell flying from the force of its blow. Patches of stripped bark on the tree limb suggest that it might be a favored shelling spot for this jay, captured in action by photographer Steven Ash in Madera Canyon, Arizona. Mexican Jays cache acorns and pine nuts when seeds are fresh, stashing their prizes in holes in the ground or between tree branches, retrieving and eating them as needed through the winter and spring. This jay’s mottled bill indicates a young bird. It will likely darken to uniform black as the jay ages, but close observers can identify individual youngsters by their bills’ unique patches of black and pinkish white. 
 

American Robin on Cockspur Hawthorn 

Though the leaves of cockspur hawthorn turn bronze and drop away in the fall, its summer-ripened red berries can hang on through the winter, when they are particularly appreciated by hungry birds like this American Robin, photographed by Maria Khvan in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The familiar thrush may be famous as an earthworm-eating harbinger of spring (though in truth their seasonal movements are complicated), but through fall and winter fruits can account for more than 90 percent of a robin’s diet. In the coldest months the birds gorge on berries, picking up the pace of their eating as nightfall approaches. In fact, they often swallow fruits faster than they can digest them; they manage it with an extendable esophagus, which functions like the crop in other species.