Plants stage seasonal dramas, but birds twitter with songs and dances that entertain us as we lounge in our chairs.

Invite some birds to your backyard gardens and you will find yourself suddenly smiling, the day's troubles flying away.

It's hard to fret while you watch bluebirds house hunt in the spring.

It's easy to marvel at life's cycles when you see a robin play tug-of-war with an earthworm reluctant to leave his soil-rich home.

It's fun to make up bird stories with children while you watch golden-yellow finches flit around the thistle feeders and ruby-red cardinals feast on sunflower seeds.

In addition to stocking your gardens with bird houses, you need to offer them foods they like. In return, they will rid your gardens of many insects you dislike.

Avoid feeds with filler seeds and make sure seed is fresh, says Elaine Cole of Cole's Wild Bird Products Co., a wholesaler in Marietta, Ga. "Birds can tell if seed is dried out or if sunflower seed does not have a high oil content. There are different grades in sunflower and the grade is measured by the content of the oil."

When shopping for feeders, look for styles with wire cages to keep out squirrels and large unwanted birds. Squirrels find it difficult to chew metal but they can destroy plastic and wood feeders. If you are not bothered by squirrels - lucky you - plain tubular and platform feeders work fine.

Feeders need to be kept clean, so check styles to see how easily old seed can be cleaned out of them. Rainy and humid weather dampens seed, causing it to sprout, clump and mold.

You'll also find seeds attract and deter certain critters. Squirrels, grackles and black birds do not particularly like safflower seed, but cardinals and other songbirds do. Cardinals may be timid about safflower at first, so mix some sunflower seed with it and they will soon dine to their beak's content.

Any garden for birds must offer fresh water - year-round. Most birds love to drink and frolic in shallow pools of water. Having learned that the hard way, I turned my deep-bowl bird bath into a planter for trailing tendrils of ivy. For shallow bowls of water, I use large round plastic saucers sold separately where planters are found in garden centers and a plastic hanging bird bath from a nature store. The plastic is easy to keep clean. Next, I want to add a mister to my bird reserve.

Now that my feeders are stocked with assorted seeds and the water bowl are kept filled, I marvel at how many different birds serenade my husband and I each evening.

There is a downside to all this though. Birds eat, birds poop ... usually on your windows and siding.

BIRDERS

* Williamsburg Bird Club offers a $3.25 booklet listing frequently seen birds in the area and places to see many of them. Available at Peninsula Ace Hardware, Williamsburg.

* Hampton Roads Bird Club meets 7:30 p.m second Friday of each month at Morrison United Methodist Church, 236 Harpersville Road, Newport News 898-7354.

* Cape Henry Audubon Society meets 7:30 p.m. third Wednesday of each month at the Red Cross building, Brambleton and Colley avenues, downtown Norfolk. 464-9437 or see chas.va.audubon.org

* For information about the Virginia Beach Audubon Society, call 426-5481.

Call the Bird Hot Line, Virginia Society of Ornithology, 238-2713 (Suffolk).

* See the Audubon Naturalist society at www.audubonnaturalist.org

LOCAL BIRDS AND THE FEEDERS & FOOD THEY PREFER

Ground/platform feeders: cardinal, mourning dove, junco, blue jay, eastern bluebird and song, chipping and tree sparrows.