Want to attract a different sort of bird to your porch, patio, balcony, or deck this fall?

Some simple steps to prepare for a migrant:

1. More Food Variety

Try offering more of a variety than you usually do. If you offer just sunflower seed, try nuts. If you're already offering seed, nuts, and even suet, try adding fruit or mealworms.

2. Blooming Flowers

Plant flowers already in bloom as nectar for migrating hummingbirds.

Check out your local garden nursery or other retailer for salvia, pansies, petunias, or any plant with tube-shaped flowers.

3. A Warm Spot at Night

Put out man-made roosts or leave birdhouses out for roosts so migrating birds have a warm place at night.

4. Move Water

A water feature that moves water may attract migrating birds by its sound.

5. Let Your Garden and Lawn Go

Birds love lawn grass seed as well as the frost-killed fruits and seedheads in gardens. If you have an edible garden, don't clean it up. If you have a lawn (and local rules allow), let it up grow up to seed.

6. Cleanliness

Help prevent diseases here from spreading to breeding grounds elsewhere by cleaning your feeders and birdhouses.

Your Timeframe

The second migration of the year (fall migration in the northern hemisphere) occurs August through early November.

A migrating bird may stopover as much as week, replenishing its fat reserves.

The Routes

Most population centers in North America are close to migratory corridors, the flyways birds travel on their long journeys.

Even if you are not on a flyway for a particular bird, you can still attract a migrating bird. I saw a hummingbird last week on the Great Plains -- perhaps more enjoyable because of the rarity.