I get asked all the time if birds should be fed all year round, and the simple answer to this is yes, if you can, they will really appreciate and benefit from it. Spring feeding allows birds to raise their young with a decent food source to keep them going. Adults won’t feed seeds to their chicks in the nest, but they will find it invaluable in terms of getting enough calories for themselves to keep up to high demands of their chicks – each baby blue tit can eat 100 caterpillars a day, and if you think that an average nest is 8-12 eggs then that means very busy parents!!
Summer feeding is also important for your garden birds, they start to moult in late summer which takes up a lot of their energy and makes them more vulnerable to predators. Ensuring a good quality food source will make things far easier for them, and having some sheltered spots in your garden that they can duck into will make them feel safe while they eat too. Providing water is another really important part of encouraging wildlife into your space. Clean and fresh water is essential for drinking and bathing, I’ve spent many happy hours watching my garden birds using the bird bath in the garden, a brood of young starlings are hilarious to watch while they play in the water!!
Autumn and winter are well known as the main times of year to feed birds, insects are not as readily available, and berries disappear quickly once the flocks of redwing and fieldfare arrive!! Food becomes more scarce and your garden inhabitants will need all the help they can get during the cold and wet conditions. Feeding good quality seed and suet throughout this period will really make a huge difference and will encourage lots of species to visit you – who knows what you will find on your feeders!! I’ve been lucky to have a great spotted woodpecker bring her babies into my garden, they snaffled all the suet pellets I had out and then went for a bath, it was incredible to see. I also had a visiting jay for several days, again demolishing the suet, before moving on last summer. They are such gorgeous birds, and normally quite shy and elusive, so to get such close views was a real treat.
In terms of what to feed your birds, this can change depending on what species you get, what products you use to feed your birds (table, ground or feeders) or what you are hoping to attract to your space. Generally speaking, a good quality seed and a suet option are winners, but lots of people find that a wider mix of feed suits them too. Personally speaking, I feed suet balls (not in mesh bags, they can trap birds) for the huge number of starlings and the woodpeckers, suet nibbles for the tits and finches, and sunflower hearts to cover everything else. Whatever you choose to feed, and whatever you use to do so, it’s important to have a regular cleaning routine in place to make sure your birds stay healthy, and the feeders don’t get clogged up. The RSPB’s recommended product for this is Ark-Klens, it is a safe disinfectant for your birds, and a useful cleaning kit can be seen on the RSPB website here, or come into store for further advice.
The team in the shop at Fairburn have been asked in the past why the RSPB bird food is so expensive, so I wanted to try and explain a little bit about the quality, and the level of thought that goes into our products. Certainly, from my own perspective and that of my garden birds, our food products are right up there among the highest quality you will find. A lot of cheaper seed mixes use large quantities of wheat as a ‘filler’, which some birds will eat, but most discard it to the ground where it will sprout and grow. Our seed has only very small quantities of wheat for those that like it, and the seed is heat treated to prevent it from sprouting. Cheaper mixes tend to be chemically treated to try and prevent this.
Because the RSPB is an environmental organisation, one of the most important things to us is to try and limit our impact on the planet through our own products, but also to encourage others to be more mindful of their actions too. With this in mind, we work with various suppliers to reduce packaging, carbon footprints etc. Regarding our bird food, we have backed the Fair to Nature scheme – which is our gold standard for conservation and allows farmers to step up, managing at least 10% of their farmed land in a way that benefits nature. This can include wild bird food crops, hedgerows, ponds, woodlands, meadows and more. The majority of the seed you find in the RSPB now is from Fair to Nature farms, so by buying from us, you’ll be helping nature three times over!! You can read more about Fair to Nature here.
Another area where we are working hard is our packaging, and bird food is top of the list as it covers a large chunk of our products – meaning we can make a big difference quickly. Our bird food sacks (12.75kg and 5.5kg) are made from fully recyclable paper packaging. The smaller seed bags are made with fully recyclable plastic, but we are working on a longer-term solution and are hoping to move across to paper with these too. Suet products are also moving across to paper packaging – this is a bit harder as the high fat and oil content leaches out onto the paper, but we are a determined lot and don’t like to be beaten!! You can check out what else we are doing to be sustainable here.
As you can see, there’s a lot of hard work that goes into the range of RSPB bird food, and I hope that you get as much enjoyment out of using it with your feathered friends as I do in my own garden. The Fairburn shop is open every day apart from Christmas Day and Boxing Day, so if you want any advice, to stock up on seed or for anything else you might need, come and see us. We will be more than happy to chat to you and help wherever we can. Also, the RSPB website is a mine of information, you can read all about our different types of food, and what species they will be good for here.
Thanks very much for reading!!
By Dawn Butterworth, Retail Manager