Though maple trees didn't work in the yard in central Texas, pyracantha (also known as Scarlet Firethorn), large rambunctious shrubs, proved to be a real trooper. I'd first seen them in Albuquerque where the blazing orange berries were visually captivating. Back in Texas, the red-berried varieties were more available, and that's what we went for.

At the time I wasn't savvy enough to be thinking of birds and beasts - just wanted something attractive that would survive the extremes in the local climate. They thrived in weather cold or hot, wet or very dry. The blooms in spring, with their pungent, lightly noxious but apparently appealing smell, attracted hundreds of honeybees and bitty flies especially in the mornings. The blooms dropped, and tiny green berries grew until late in summer, then reddened into bright berries that lasted well into winter (and sometimes into spring when they glowed fiery red next to the new white blooms). Mockingbirds and cedar waxwings feasted, and we even had a tortoise who showed up to eat berries that fell to the ground. Careful of the thorns, we trimmed off slender boughs to ornament the house during the holidays. The occasional light snow dusted the red berries with white, in the quiet of winter, a heart touching sight.

(Above image from Wikimedia Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyracantha )