Feeding Your Garden Birds

Feeding our garden birds has become a very popular pastime. In the UK alone it is thought that over half of adults in the UK feed birds in their garden but no matter who we are there has to be a first time for us to feed our feathered friends. When we see them hopping around the garden and pecking at all sorts it is easy to dismiss how much care we should be taking with the type of food we provide and the hygiene required. The last think we want to do is harm our birds when all we are trying to do is be kind.

Why Do We Feed the Birds?

Those who do not feed the birds probably wonder why we do it. The first response has to be because we enjoy it.

But there are benefits for the birds as well as the therapeutic affect for us humans. Providing birds with supplementary food brings them closer for us to see their wonderful colours and markings and to see their behaviour which sometimes to our eyes can seem very amusing. In addition feeding birds is an easy way to start teaching children about wildlife.

We must remember though that supplementary feeding cannot provide all of the natural proteins and vitamins that adult and young birds need, so it is important to create and manage our gardens to provide a source of natural foods.

We can all play a valuable role in helping to care for the birds that visit our gardens and help to overcome periods of natural food shortage, survive periods of severe winter weather and be in good breeding condition in the spring. Combine that with good nesting sites and you stand a good chance of the continuity of species in your garden or back yard.

What Birds Can You Expect To See Feeding In Your Garden

You may be able to attract the wild birds close enough to see what is visiting your garden but bird identification can sometimes be difficult as some bird species look very similar to the naked eye. The popularity of bird watching has encouraged the production and availability of birdwatching binoculars, spotting scopes etc and armed with the right equipment and field guide you should have no problem compiling a list or birds that you are attracting to your space.

The most likely visitors are starlings, house sparrows, blackbirds, blue and great tits, robins, greenfinches, pigeons and collared doves.

In many gardens dunnocks, song thrushes and chaffinches will be seen on the ground beneath the birdtable.

If you have trees or live in a wooded area you may see great spotted woodpeckers, nuthatches and coal, marsh and long-tailed tits.

We are lucky enough to have a woodpecker visiting the nut feeder and regular visits now from long-tailed tits. At one time the long-tailed tits just passed through, stopping off for a few days feeding and then moving on. Squashing peanuts into the bark of a tree resulted in visits from a nuthatch and treecreeper.

Blackcaps are becoming regular visitors to some bird tables in winter.

All thrush species - fieldfares, redwings, mistle thrush and song thrush and blackbirds visit gardens for fruit and berries. Grow trees and bushes that bear berries of different colours and be prepared to enjoy them for the short period before they are stripped by the hungry birds. In some ways this provides double the pleasure, your garden enhanced by the colourful berries and the enjoyment of watching the birds.

Siskins and bramblings can be regular visitors in some winters. You may also see sparrowhawks and kestrels in search of prey. The sparrowhawks are regular visitors to our garden. Beautiful birds but it can be difficult when you see them hunting and catching a bird. However this is nature and that is what they do. The one think you can say for sparrowhawks is that they kill and eat all that it is possible for them to eat, it is not just wilful and senseless killing for the sake of it.

Insect-eating birds, such as wrens and treecreepers are unlikely to visit bird tables, but for treecreepers food can be pushed into cracks in bark and for wrens put beside an ivy-covered wall, a stump or along a hedge bottom. A wren may be small but you will certainly know when one has claimed your garden as its territory, where does all that noise come from?

Goldfinches are attracted to seedheads of plants such as teasel and the seed supply can be augmented by refilling the seedheads with nyjer (niger) seeds which they love. You will be glad you did when you get a visit from one of these beautiful birds.

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