No-contact Parking Lot Pickup or Limited Home Delivery Now Available

Our store is currently not open to the public until further notice. However we are making no-contact parking lot pickups or limited home deliveries available.

To schedule a no-contact parking lot pickup of your order, you must email us first. Our hours are unpredictable right now, so please contact us before showing up.

Find email order instructions here.

Shop Small!


Shopping local, small businesses keeps your money in your community.


Wild Birds Must Maximize Nutrition at Each Feeding Opportunity

The Backyard Naturalist stocks only premium wild bird food, like Black Oil Sunflower seeds. Photo by Bauschard, flickrCC

Quality Bird Seed and Clean Feeders Matter

Empty calories are lost nourishment! Wild birds must be efficient eaters to survive. They seek the best nutritional content available and eat their fill quickly. Feeding birds bread (Please never feed bread!) or seed blends full of ‘filler seed’ is essentially robbing them of opportunities for full nourishment. In winter, a stomach filled with empty calories will not give a wild bird enough energy to stay warm. Read More about “Quality Bird Seed and Clean Feeders Matter”…

From The Backyard Blog

  • Bread is bad for birds. It offers zero calories and gives a false sense of fullness. Please do not feed bread, crackers and other human snacks to wild birds. You are robbing them of nutrition, essentially.Bread is Bad for Wild Birds
    Please do not feed bread, crackers and other human snack food to wild birds! Bread has ZERO nutrition for them, but fills their small stomachs— robbing them of opportunities to take in real nourishment. In winter, this can kill them!…

Thank You for Celebrating This Special Day with Us!

It was a perfect day, for many, many reasons.

Our heartfelt appreciation to each of you who came to visit the store or sent us your best wishes for our 30th anniversary. We are grateful to have each one of you in our lives. Special gratitude for Adventures with Raptors. Being so close to these amazing animals — while being surrounded by so many people who love and honor them — was a unique, humbling and emotional experience that we will always remember.

Thank you for sharing the Love.
Debi and Mike & The Backyard Naturalist Staff

Thank you to our dear friend Marjorie Hollis for capturing this moment.

About The Backyard Naturalist

The Backyard Naturalist is the area's largest and oldest independent retailer of products for wild birds and gifts for nature lovers of all ages! Proudly serving Maryland and the Washington, DC metro area for thirty years.

We are Maryland's first and only store to be awarded Droll Yankees' Five Feather Platinum Premier dealer status.

We take care of our feathered friends’ needs year-round:

The Backyard Blog Archive

No-contact Parking Lot Pickup or Limited Home Delivery Now Available

Our store is currently not open to the public until further notice. However we are making no-contact parking lot pickups or limited home deliveries available.

To schedule a no-contact parking lot pickup of your order, you must email us first. Our hours are unpredictable right now, so please contact us before showing up.

Find email order instructions here.

‘Best Of’ Montgomery

Thank you for voting us ‘Best Of’
MoCo’s Best Gift Shop
Montgomery County, Maryland!!!

Contact Us

The Backyard Naturalist
17910 Georgia Avenue
Olney MD 20832

Contact Us:
Our store is currently not open to the public until further notice. However we are making limited home deliveries. Find out more here.

Flock with Us

View our YouTube channel See photos on Flickr

Or subscribe to our email updates:

Our emails are rare birds and fly in as seasonal reminders carrying noteworthy information. We promise their chicks will never hatch in your InBox.

Our mailing list NEVER migrates, so your info stays private.

Our Mission

For 30 years, The Backyard Naturalist has had this mission:
To inspire our community to appreciate and nurture the nature found in all our backyards by providing a sanctuary of food, water and shelter for wild birds.

Each of our backyard habitats contributes to the health and well-being of not only the individual visitors to our feeders and baths, but is also one more piece of habitat restored and connected to Migratory Flyways. As green space increasingly disappears due to development, our backyard micro habitats link together, backyard by backyard, across our county – our state – our country.