Patty Loew:
Spring is a busy time for wildlife centers treating orphaned animals. It is also migration time when millions of neotropical song birds make their way north. They're hungry, very hungry and their next dinner reservation may be in your backyard. "In Wisconsin" reporter Jo Garrett shows you how to prepare a feast for your feathered friends in La Crosse.

Jo Garrett:
So much depends on dinner. This is the city of La Crosse, along the Mississippi River. It has long been a way station for travelers, Native Americans passed by these cliffs followed by French fur traders and Mississippi riverboats. And every year, forever, these guys have made their way up the river. This is a black and white warbler, a songbird, also called a neotropical migrant or neotrop. One of hundreds of bird species that breed here in North America and winter back in Central and South America. Twice a year they migrate by the millions through this Mississippi River corridor and along the way, they need dinner.

Craig Thompson:
We're actually in the heart of La Crosse, about four blocks from the university and this is my backyard.

Jo Garrett:
This is Craig Thompson. Thompson works for the Wisconsin department of natural resources. He and his wife, Mary, have on their own traveled the world leading bird watching trips to avian wonder spots like Panama.

Craig Thompson:
It's really the thrill of the chase and seeing the stuff.

Jo Garrett:
Thompson is dedicated to the conservation of these birds, some of which are in terrible decline. And outside of his home in La Crosse in a somewhat small yard, he's planted a bit of a solution. He's planted a way station.

Craig Thompson:
This yard is less than 2/10 acre and we have it crammed wall-to-wall with flowers and flowering shrubs and trees but what we're trying to do is make it a little bit of a wild place in the midst of a really tamed, sterilized, overmanicured area, residential La Crosse.

Jo Garrett:
In the midst of La Crosse this little wild space has served as a roadside cafeteria to a vast array of winged travelers.

Craig Thompson:
We've seen Baltimore orioles, brown thrashers, warblers, Tennessee warblers, yellow warblers, common yellow throats. They're stopping here to refuel ever so briefly and then they're off.

Jo Garrett:
They need to refuel. Migrating neotrops like this one have already traveled thousands of miles with perhaps hundreds more to go. They need to touch down and grab a blue plate special. An avian energy bar. Something like this chokecherry packed with fruit.

Craig Thompson:
You can see it's an early spring flowering shrub that will get nice clusters of berries on the end that the birds will like a lot. What I try to do is actually plant shrubs and trees and flowers that provide benefits for both wildlife and then insects as well.

Jo Garrett:
Because to feed these birds you must feed the insects. Which in turn feeds the birds.

Craig Thompson:
Here is a little bee on the tip of this chokecherry right now. Something will come along and probably snap it up and eat it.

Jo Garrett:
Something will snap up the bee and something is going to go for the second course, the bee larvae.

Craig Thompson:
Flies and bees will come in, and butterflies, and lay eggs on the things. The larva will be out there. Great food for birds. This is all native plants, basically native plants. Species called Culvers root, bergamot, New England aster and a host of other things to benefit bugs. When this is blossoming and at its peak, this place is a nectar factory.

Jo Garrett:
It’s a food factory underfoot, too. Check out the lawn.

Craig Thompson:
What I want to point out here is that this is just filled with weeds and so we've got clover and we've got chickweed and we've got plantain and dandelions. I don't make an effort to get rid of any of them. The reason I don't is because monotypic dense turf grass is a biological desert. It doesn’t provide a lot of habitat for anything. You want to provide plants that bugs feed on and those in turn feed birds. That's what we're trying to accomplish here.

Jo Garrett:
Even the dreaded dandelion is on the dinner menu. Thompson may yank some, but he always leaves a few.

Craig Thompson:
It's amazing. The gold finches come in and eat the dandelion heads. Anybody can plant their yard to make it worthwhile for wildlife. It is really easy and fun. It takes a little time to see it come to maturity but it’s incredibly satisfying. And to see the birds respond, jackpot, mission accomplished.

Jo Garrett:
As if on cue, minutes later we hit the jackpot while Thompson was describing this native plant, the Virginia blue bell.

Craig Thompson:
Hard for a bee to get in here. Hummingbirds can access it with the longer bill and tongue and it provides an instant source of high energy food for them. They need to have it. In fact, I just heard the hummer chip back here. It won't be coming into these. We're too close. There it is. It comes into the humming bird feeder. This is so cool. Here is a bird that spent the winter in Central America. Somehow in a miraculous flight made it across the Gulf of Mexico. This is a bird that weighs less than a dime, flew non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico and somehow flew all the way through every hazard to get to our backyard. It's feeding and nesting here because we've created a backyard that's good for it.

Jo Garrett:
It is a four-star avian diner.

Jo Garrett:
Restaurant Thompson.

Craig Thompson:
That's very fancy. Do you have reservations? Chez Thompson.

Craig Thompson:
You're always welcome. Come on over.

Patty Loew:
If you'd like to see what to plant in your backyard to help migrating birds go to our website at wpt.org and scroll down and click on "In Wisconsin." We also wanted to mention a documentary project in the works called "Our Birds" with reports on Wisconsin's migratory birds in Panama and Costa Rica. Watch for that in the spring of 2011.