14 Charming Photos That Showcase the Beautiful Bonds Between Birds and Native Plants

A Wood Duck chomping on acorns. A migrating warbler resting among sagebrush. A wren building its nest within the spiky fortress of a cactus. These are just a few of the ways native plants support birds throughout their life cycles and across generations. With their seeds, berries, and branches, they provide food and shelter for birds of all shapes and sizes, from large herons to tiny hummingbirds.

The following photos offer a wonderful window into the many ways native plants support avian life. They are drawn from the 2025 Audubon Photography Awards in the Plants for Birds category, which illustrates how the survival of birds and native plants are intertwined, and how these connections often support the health of entire ecosystems.

As you browse through this gallery, we invite you to reflect on the essential roles native plants play in the lives of your local birds. (It’s an exercise you can also apply to the 2025 photo contest winners, as well as the top 100 images.) And if you’re inspired to help birds by planting native plants in your backyard, make sure to check out Audubon’s native plant finder to learn which species are best suited for your region.

Cactus Wren on Cholla (above)

Cholla is a cactus found in much of the Southwest whose spines stubbornly attach to fur, skin, or clothing. Although these plants can prove painful for people, Cactus Wrens are right at home among the cholla. They often perch atop a cactus to scan the horizon or, in the case of this bird, build their nests within its barbed limbs. Photographer Michael Madding watched this wren in Texas gather small branches and disappear within the cholla, where it built a round, football-size nest in preparation for the breeding season.

American Robin on American Holly

The American holly, or Christmas holly, is known for its verdant spiky leaves and vibrant berries, which photographer Tamara Berman Ishee planted in her North Carolina backyard as a food source for winter birds. The evergreen tree is a perfect attractant for the American Robin, a species that gulps down the berries in preparation for colder weather, since the holly’s characteristic red fruits ripen around the first frost in fall. The two species help each other: The holly’s berries nourish the robin, and the robin disperses the tree’s seeds.

Gilded Flicker on Saguaro

The towering, tree-like saguaro cactus is an emblem of the Sonoran Desert. These hardy succulents can grow over 40 feet tall and are a key part of the desert ecosystem. Their tall arms offer perfect vantage points for birds, their flowers and fruits provide sweet treats in the desert heat, and their stalks serve as places for animals to shelter and nest. The Gilded Flicker, a desert specialist, is no exception, as it nests mainly in holes in the saguaro cactus. These two female flickers, captured by photographer Sean McEntee in Arizona, squabble above a saguaro—possibly a territorial dispute.

Anna’s Hummingbird with Arroyo Willow

Across much of the West, the late-spring air fills with the fluff of the arroyo willow as the tree sheds its cottony seeds. For the Anna’s Hummingbird, the white puffs are a great source of material for building tiny nests—a behavior that photographer James Nelson captured in this image from Arizona. Female hummingbirds make their nests by weaving together plant fibers, gluing the strands with sticky spider webs, and lining the cup with fluff or down feathers. The birds also sometimes place lichen on the outside of the nest to help it blend into its surroundings.

Acorn Woodpecker with Oak

This male Acorn Woodpecker, photographed in California by Lee Greengrass, is leucistic, meaning that some of its pigment cells no longer produce color. Its striking white plumage, however, is not a damper on its food-gathering skills. Over the course of multiple visits, Greengrass watched this bird carefully tend to its cache of acorns, known as a granary. To create these stockpiles, Acorn Woodpeckers drill thousands of holes into a tree and stuff the nuts into them, providing food for their family during the winter.

Red-winged Blackbird on Cattail

If you’ve visited a marsh, you’ve probably seen the tubular structures of cattails standing tall on the shore. But you might have missed one of the features that make these plants so valuable for birds: Hiding inside a cattail’s characteristic corndog-like flower head are, on average, a whopping 220,000 seeds. Each one has silky hairs attached to it, helping the seed to catch the wind and colonize other parts of the marsh. This fluffy material is popular for bird nests, and the seeds themselves provide a great snack for overwintering birds like this female Red-winged Blackbird, as captured in Virginia by Julie Davis.

Wood Duck on California Live Oak

In many parts of North America, acorns are a major part of the Wood Duck’s diet. This male, photographed by Benjamin Martin Mortimer, is chowing down on the acorns of the California live oak—more than 15 of them in one sitting, by Mortimer’s count. Also known as coast oaks, these extraordinary trees have a recognizable gnarled canopy and form the basis of the oak woodlands found along California shorelines. They not only support a wide range of species, but also can live well past 250 years.

Black-capped Chickadee on American Red Pine

With its rufous bark and long needles, red pine is a familiar evergreen tree that can be found across much of northeastern North America. Its seeds, nestled in dense cones, are a favorite of seed-eating birds like finches, crossbills, and chickadees. Photographer Linda Scher captured this Black-capped Chickadee feasting on pine seeds in South Dakota. Chickadees have the ability to acrobatically forage and hang upside down from branches, helping individuals like this bird access hard-to-reach seeds.

Northern Harrier with Cattail

Northern Harriers can often be seen soaring above cattail meadows, where they use their keen hearing and owl-like facial disk to triangulate the presence of prey. Photographer Eileen de la Cruz thought she was observing this behavior when she saw this female Northern Harrier dive-bombing the ground in Washington State. But to her surprise, the raptor emerged with talons full of cattail fluff. What the bird was up to remains somewhat mysterious, since de la Cruz took this photo in October—well outside the breeding season—and Northern Harriers tend to prefer cattail stalks or other grasses to construct their ground nests.

Northern Yellow Warbler on Sagebrush

Sagebrush is one of the most important plants of the American West. The spiny, fragrant shrub forms the foundation of the sagebrush steppe, an ecosystem found nowhere else in the world that is home to iconic species like the Greater Sage-Grouse and pronghorn. Sagebrush also supports many migratory birds as they pass through these arid regions between their breeding and wintering grounds. Such was the case for this Northern Yellow Warbler photographed by Joanie Christian in Wyoming. The plant provides shelter and shade and harbors insects that these warblers need for refueling.

American Goldfinch on Sunflower

Don’t despair when sunflower heads begin to dry up and droop: It’s a sign that the plant’s seeds are ripening and will soon attract all sorts of songbirds looking for a delicious snack. In this image, photographer Joanie Christian—yes, two of her photos landed on this list—observed a flock of American Goldfinches descending on the sunflowers on her property in eastern Washington. These birds feed almost exclusively on seeds and are masters at finding and dissecting ripened seeds from messy sunflower heads.

Great Blue Heron on Longleaf Pine

Great Blue Herons often build their nests in large evergreen trees, and this stand of longleaf pines in Florida supports an active colony. Photographer Mahmud Mohamed observed 12 herons in this grove, where the birds were fighting to pair up in preparation for the breeding season. The male, pictured here with his wings outstretched, was missing a part of his leg, but managed to win the female’s attention by presenting her with branches as nuptial gifts. The pair built their giant platform nest among the tree’s supportive branches.

Red-winged Blackbird on Cattail

Much of the Red-winged Blackbird’s life cycle depends on cattails. They nest in these tall grasses and feed on insect larvae found on the plant. In the winter, cattails themselves become an important food source. Photographer Elyse Jankowski watched as this female Red-winged Blackbird in Florida pecked at a single cattail seed head until it burst open. The bird pulled loose and fed on the seeds, a nutrient-dense snack that supports the blackbird during colder months.

Pied-billed Grebe with Eelgrass

Photographed by Craig Bamm along Michigan’s Lake Erie shore, this Pied-billed Grebe holds a bundle of freshwater eelgrass, or wild celery, an aquatic plant of great ecological importance. In the Great Lakes, eelgrass forms long, flowing meadows that provide important habitat for young fish and are a food source for diving ducks like scaup. This grebe, however, is not eating the eelgrass. Instead, it’s using the clump of vegetation to build the floating nest platform for its eggs and young.