Wondering where your garden birds have gone, or whether to clean out your nestbox?
Charlotte Ambrose from the RSPB’s Wildlife Enquiries team answers the common questions asked about nature in October, and also reveals what “putty pecking” is…
Find out more about giving nature a home in your garden
I have bird bath with a pump and running water in the middle of the lawn where they can easily see it but I have the feeders near a high hedge. There is a sparrow hawk about. The tits and finches like to sit in the hedge, fly two feet to the feeder from where they can quickly get back into the hedge. The dunnocks and wood pigeons loiter about under the feeders
Hi Richard, The small garden birds do love the shelter of hedges and don’t like to be too far from them so they can make a quick get away. But it is still good to have the feeders in a more central position, as then they have a full 360 view and can keep an eye out for the local sparrowhawk, that rely on the element of surprise