The sun is shining, the shorts are on and the garden is in full bloom. It’s time for looking after the bees and the butterflies, the bugs and the beetles. You’ve done your bit to help your birds through winter by supplying them with nutritious, tasty treats and ticked off Big Garden Birdwatch, so it’s time to retire your feeders to the shed and tie up those seed sacks. Bird feeding - job done until the frosts come in late autumn, right?
Not exactly... You might be surprised to learn that it’s still important to feed your garden birds through spring, so here are the top five reasons why your birds will be thanking you for full feeders now spring is here.
1.Dressing to impressIf you’re a male bird out to impress, glossy, well-oiled and well-groomed feathers, gleaming bright “bare parts” (that’s legs, feet, eyes and beaks), a beautiful song and elaborate display will stand you in good stead when it comes to finding a mate. You also need to find a territory and then defend it against all comers, so you need to be fighting fit and have plenty of energy. With all that pressure to look and feel good, plenty of high-quality food to get into, and stay in, top condition, is a must.
It's not easy looking this good! Feeding birds, such as greenfinches, through spring means that they'll be in tip top condition for impressing a mate (Ben Hall rspb-images.com)
2.Building the ideal home
It’s not just about the boys though. Female birds also need to get into the best of health to help them lay fertile eggs - and plenty of them. The bigger the clutch, the greater chance of raising young to adulthood. And before all that, there is the not small task of nest building, which both birds of a pair may take part in, depending on the species. The female often has the final say when it comes to location and in the case of the wren, the male does all the building for several nests and is no doubt greatly relieved when a suitable home is finally given the thumbs up!
Making a nest requires a lot of effort and uses up energy, so keep your birdtable and feeders filled through spring (Andy Hay rspb-images.com)
3.Bringing up baby
Resident birds soon have their first brood hatched out once April arrives. Robins and blackbirds are among the first young of the year to appear and while the parents are so busy tending to their fast-growing young, it’s all too easy for them to forget about themselves. Healthy, well-fed parents means a greater chance of more chicks surviving because they have the energy to work round the clock on the young's needs.
Healthy, well fed parents, like this song thrush, means that they can concentrate their efforts on finding food for their young (Mike Richards rspb-images.com)
4.The UK weather!
Let’s face it, the UK summer is unpredictable enough and in spring, anything can happen. Overnight frosts, gales, cold winds, even sleet and snow are all still possible through April and you certainly can’t rely on double figure temperatures. All of this means that natural food in the form of insects can still be hard to find. The ground can be relatively hard too before it warms up or if it is especially dry, so earthworms and other mini-beasts are harder to find too. Periods of really wet weather can be really problematic though, with lower temperatures, and make finding flying insects very difficult.
5.The cupboard is bare
Remember those heady days of last autumn when the hedgerows were full of rosehips, hawthorn and blackthorn berries; the woods were full of beech and hazel nuts and the fields full of seeds spilling out onto the ground? By spring, this natural bounty is pretty much gone and the cupboard, in many cases, is now bare. A good seed mix in your garden will go a long way in filling that gap between seeds and berries being easily available and summer’s abundance of insects. Remember good hygiene though and have a look at the what to feed advice on the RSPB website.
You can help to make sure your garden is full of baby birds by keeping the adults well fed this spring (Ray Kennedy rspb-images.com)
There is lots more advice on feeding your garden birds at this time of year on the RSPB website.
Get a half price bag of RSPB Premium sunflower hearts!To give you, and your garden birds, a helping hand this spring we’re offering a half price 5.5kg bag of Premium sunflower hearts when you spend £35 from the RSPB shop.
My feeding stations are certainly well used by species like Siskin & Redpoll, during late winter & early spring, when natural food sources are at a seasonal low & even when nesting has started, adults still get a boost from daily visits. As for uncommon birds, my 365 days a year feeding regime has, over the past few years, encouraged Tree Sparrows to becoming regular visitors here, so much so that I now have around 4 pairs using my garden boxes each year. Out here in the countryside, gardens are just a tiny % of the overall land mass, so I really don't see how feeding a few garden birds can have a serious impact on other species which don't visit our gardens so I, for one, will continue to feed my garden birds all year round.
Supplementary feeding is beneficial for birds especially in times of natural food shortage when they occur all year round. As long as people are providing the correct food stuffs and are following to a stringent feeder hygiene regime, then this should not cause problems. We are not aware of bird feeding causing conservation issues.