Birdbrella started the same way most backyard birding setups do — with a single feeder and no real idea what I was doing.
For years, I had a feeder in the yard. Birds showed up. That was enough. But in 2014, something shifted. Our family was camping at Potato Creek State Park in Indiana, and we stopped into the Nature Center on the property. Inside, tinted windows looked out onto a wildlife habitat where birds were moving freely between feeders. It wasn’t a zoo exhibit. It was a system — and watching it, I started to understand that what I had at home was just a feeder. What I was looking at was a setup designed around how birds actually behave.
I went home and started re-imagining my setup and how I could turn it into a better system.
Different feeder styles. Different seed combinations. Spacing between stations. Height relative to cover. Some things worked immediately. Others took longer to figure out. But once it started clicking — once I understood why certain arrangements attracted more species and reduced competition — I couldn’t stop refining it.
Part of that re-imagining, for me, involved figuring out the right arrangement — and somewhere in the process, I discovered that a well-built station included curved arms, extending outward. It allowed the feeders to hang at different heights, with enough distance between them that it minimized competition and allowed multiple types of birds to feed simultaneously. I also could not help but notice it looks a lot like an open umbrella. That is where the name Birdbrella originated. In the image above I elected to leave the fourth arm off the feeder in lieu of the suet cages on the back of the post for larger Woodpeckers.
That was more than a decade ago. What began as a hobby became something closer to a long-running study, and feeling led to share what I’d learned eventually turned into this site.
What Birdbrella Is
Every guide on this site is built around a single question: what actually helps someone get more birds into their yard? Not what sounds plausible. What works — based on years of observing real feeder setups and understanding the behavior behind them.
The content covers feeder types, seed selection, placement strategy, species identification, and setup advice tailored to specific birds and specific states. The goal is always the same: practical information you can use the same day you read it.
If you’re just getting started, the Simple Backyard Bird Setup is the right place to begin. If you’re trying to attract a specific bird or figure out what’s showing up at your feeder, Backyard Birds by Species will get you there faster.
A Note on How This Site Is Built
Birdbrella is built on a foundation of firsthand experience, supplemented by research from trusted ornithological sources. Where I have direct experience with a setup, feeder type, or species behavior, I say so. Where I’m drawing from established research, I try to make that clear as well.
This site exists because a lot of what’s out there can overwhelm you with detail or undersell what’s actually possible in a typical backyard. There’s a lot of middle ground that can and should be covered — and that’s where Birdbrella lives.