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Are you doing enough to help garden birds?

Wildlife is under threat*. In the UK alone we’ve lost a third of our birds in the last 70 years. How can we help as gardeners? Although most of us are already stocking up on winter bird food, it’s worth reviewing our ‘feathered friend’ strategy because there are new things to consider.

Laura

Sharing your garden with birds is such a wonderful thing and there are many ways you can encourage them to visit.

Firstly, try to have a variety of feeding stations around the garden to suit different birds’ diets. These can range from wheat dispensers for the pigeons, stock doves, collar doves, sparrows and pheasants, to rotting wood piles for the wrens and hedge sparrows. And then you could have a store of apples to put out for the blackbirds, thrushes, field fares and redwings, and a range of hanging feeders for the tits, finches, nuthatches and woodpeckers. 

Apple storing
If you are storing apples for yourselves remember to add a load more for the birds

I’m even researching farming our own mealworms in a big plastic tub in the airing cupboard so we have a regular supply for our robins, having found the instructions on how to go about it on the British Trust for Ornithology website, (and yes, I have put a link to it at the end and will be watching with interest to see how many of you click through to it). 

Piles of gently rotting wood are like a deli counter for our insectivorous birds.

But feeding birds in such density can bring issues such as disease transmission. Scientific reports now point to unhygienic feeding methods playing a part in the rise of contagious diseases such as trichinosis that has hit the UK greenfinch population so hard in recent years. So I was delighted to be offered the chance to trial three different types of bird feeder from the company Finches Friend this summer, and my review of the way their innovative design minimises the chance of cross contamination can be found at the link at the end, accompanied by a short video. 

Cleaner Feeder 1 Finches Friend
Is this the best ever bird feeder?

picture of Caroline
Caroline

Wow and I thought squirrel-proof feeders were state of the art! TBH even bird food can be tricky in my opinion. Peanuts ✔️; sunflower kernels✔️; fat blocks, ✔️ (although also liked by pine martens here in Scotland); Niger seeds – no way! They were tantamount to undercooked tripe for my garden birds who dramatically refused to eat a single one despite arctic conditions – not even the gold/green/bull finches.

So I’m thinking maybe I should actually GROW more stuff that birds like to eat.

Hedera helix berries ivy
Our native ivy produces sturdy anthracite coloured berries packed with sustenance for birds to feast on.

Top of my list is ivy – birds love its little black berries in winter and you’ll also find holly, honeysuckle and hawthorn on the list of good winter food sources, the latter having the added asset of being a good caterpillar host, providing tasty snacks for fledglings in the spring.

You’ll also find rowans, crab apples and rosa rugosa feature on the winter nosh ‘roll of honour’. I have all of these in my garden but I generally find a few R. Rugosa hips left on the side of the plate come springtime. If birds could write a review I just know they’d be saying, ‘These Rugosa hips were a handy bite when nowhere else was open, but not up to the pyracantha and aronia berries we binged on in the autumn.’ These are Michelin star fare for my birds – what about where you live?


Elaine

Our precious birds also need shelter.  They need somewhere to ‘hang out’ – well, don’t we all!  Safe roosting sites are as crucial as food for helping birds to get through the winter. 

Here comes the happy excuse for not having too tidy a garden – neat lawns, cleared flower-beds, and hard landscaping offer no cover from howling winds, rain or snow.  So while you may have had a bit of a sort-out at the back end of summer, you can leave some bosky corners and hairy shrubs with a contented heart, knowing that you’re giving the birdies a snug corner for chilly winter nights. Heaps of leaves and clippings will bring them in to scuffle and forage around.

Birds love fossicking around in heaps of leaves and clippings

As roosting sites, it won’t be any surprise to learn that hedges are much better than walls and fences.  And while our little songbirds are snuggling in among the hedge branches, hedgehogs and other small mammals have safe highways and hibernation spots along the hedge-bottom.  

Wildlife hedge
Hedges, particularly a woolly wildlife hedge like this, represent birdlife heaven

Providing a source of fresh water is another critically important way to support our bird population. Almost any ‘container’ will do, from a margarine tub on the windowsill to an elegant birdbath or a lake. If you’re using something manmade to hold the water, give it a good regular scrub-out – diseases can be spread between our feathered friends from sharing dirty water as well as food. And check it hasn’t turned to ice on the frosty mornings!

Pond
Ponds, birdbaths or even a simple container on a windowsill can provide birds with vital fresh water in winter

Of course, there are a few birds for which you can’t do much. Magnificent white storks have lived in our Normandy garden for the last decade and as climate change starts to bite, they are becoming increasingly likely to stay all year at their gigantic and very exposed nest built on a telegraph pole.  I’d like to see the bird-feeder that could cope with them! 🤣

It’d be some bird-feeder that could cope with a stork!

* System in peril

Here are the instructions on how to breed your own meal worms

Here is the review of Laura’s trial of the excellent Finches Friend Cleaner Feeders and click on the box below to see the video of them in action.


This absolute autumn star will continue to delight you through the winter. It’s Louise’s Great Plant this Month and here’s why


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By the3growbags

We're three sisters who love gardening, plants and even the science of horticulture but we're not all experts. We'd love everyone even remotely interested in their gardens to be part of our blogsite.

6 replies on “Are you doing enough to help garden birds?”

Like Caroline, I’m introducing more plants into my garden that will provide a more natural feeding station for birds. A crab apple tree, my most recent addition, is full of fruit just now. I’ve made a note of aronia for my next purchase. Thank you Caroline.

Helen you wont be disappointed if you plant an aronia. It also has the common name of Chokeberry (I have no idea why because its sumptious berries are considered a superfood for humans never mind the birds). It loves an acid soil so, as a fellow Scottish resident, it should do really well for you! I wish this comment section enabled one to include images – I’d love to share the autumn colour of my aronia with you. Good luck! Very best wishes to you as always, Caroline

I love to feed the birds in my garden but unfortunately it is also encouraging rats from next door so I will endeavour to grow more plants with berries on for the birds and hope the rats leave us alone!!
Thank you for all the entertaining articles.

I think that’s a good strategy Susan. They say you’re never more than 6 feet away from a rat. That might be a bit of an urban myth but they are the very devil to control once you’ve got them in your house or outbuildings. Growing trees and plants with berries is a really good policy to meet all objectives! Thank you for commenting. Wishing you a great and not too windy Sunday! Caroline (and the other two)

I want to thank you for endorsing Finches Friends birdfeeders. We have had a variety of bird feeders in our garden over the years, all claiming to be the best but either birdseeds were spilt on the ground attracting greedy pigeons and squirrels and/or larger birds like magpies, jackdaws etc managed to feed and scare the smaller birds away.
After just 2 days of setting up the Cleaner Feeder 1 all our favourite birds ( tits, nuthatches, greenfinches and goldfinches are enjoying the new feeding station while the larger birds have given up and disappeared. We still get the odd grumpy pigeon searching for seeds, but as there is absolutely no spillage with the Finches Friends feeder they all leave disappointed.
We have now ordered the peanut feeder as well.

Hello Heike
So glad to hear that the Finches Friend feeder has been so successful for you!
They are a bit pricier than the average feeder but so much knowledge has gone into their design to minimise the spread of disease amongst the smaller garden birds, and as you point out, deter the bigger interlopers, that I feel it is money well spent. We all spend a lot on the actual bird seed and peanuts each winter so it makes sense to invest in feeders that deliver the food in a clean hygienic way to the right species.
It’s such a pleasure to watch our fabulous feathered friends enjoying our gardens that we owe them the best! Best wishes Laura

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