As cold weather and terrible snow puns sweep across the UK, your garden birds need your help!
During cold snaps, birds become vulnerable and are more likely to come into our gardens to seek refuge. When temperatures drop below freezing, the insects, berries and seeds that garden birds usually feast on will become off limits thanks to frost and snow. Taking the time to provide some nutritious food and water for them is essential to their survival.
To help your birds survive, you can provide food such as meal worms, fat-balls, crushed peanuts, dried fruit, seeds and grain. Leftovers, including grated cheese, porridge oats, soft fruit, unsalted bacon, cooked rice, pasta and the insides of cooked potatoes are also good sources of energy for garden birds, and water for both drinking and bathing is vital.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. The chilly conditions may also mean that you get to see some birds you don’t often see until later on in winter. They will use gardens as a safe haven. Look out for fieldfares as well as colourful species such as siskins and waxwings that will add a bit of cheer to the bleak mid-winter.
Here are six top tips for helping your garden birds:
1. Put out feed regularly, especially in severe weather. Set up a bird table and use high calorie seed mixes. This can also be used to put out kitchen scraps such as grated cheese, pastry and porridge oats.
2. Put out hanging feeders with black sunflower seeds, sunflower hearts, sunflower-rich mixes or unsalted peanuts.
3. Ensure a supply of fresh water every day. If it is very cold use tepid water but DO NOT use any antifreeze products.
4. Put out fruit, such as apples and pears, for blackbirds, song thrushes and other members of the thrush family.
5. Birdfood bars or fat hung up or rubbed into the bark of trees is a great help for treecreepers, goldcrests and many other species.
6. Put up nest boxes to provide roost sites for the smaller birds. They will then be used for breeding later in the year.When the weather conditions take a turn for the worse, you might notice that your birds start behaving differently. They will be very active first thing in the morning after a long, cold night and last thing in the afternoon as they try to build up energy to get them through another night.
During winter, birds feed often, but they have to take plenty of rest to conserve energy. Many become more sociable, flocking together to improve their chances of locating food, and huddling together during the critical night-time period to help conserve body heat.
Other birds fly to milder regions in search of areas less affected by the weather where food is still readily available. This can create a sudden and dramatic change to the birdlife in your area.
So, leave some food out for your birds and keep your eyes peeled – you might be lucky enough to spot some unusual garden visitors. Let us know who’s eating at your garden restaurant!
Thanks Marion.
I'm afraid it might be the latter, Tim.
I just can't imagine how the smaller birds could possibly manage to survive in the temperatures that we've been experiencing lately.
I'm on the edge of London and it has been bad enough here. I know that it has been worse where you are.
Just keep putting food AND water out daily. I think it's all we can do.
I live fairly central Glasgow in a second floor flat. In early December I was delighted to find some lightweight bird feeders with suckers intended to stick on windows (similar to these http://tinyurl.com/335ffu8). Filled with RSPB Buggy and Fruity nibbles and suet balls the feeders were a great hit with various tits, sparrows and the occasional Robin. At one point I was having to replenish two feeders daily.
But after the heavy snow the rate of visitors has dropped off very dramatically. There's now just an occasional Blue or Great Tit.
Just wondering if anyone has any ideas for using feeders like these a few storeys up?
Or could it just be because the general population has reduced since the bad weather?
I would be interested to know what food other people put out for the birds.
I usually put out any bread/cake crumbs, raisins, dried mealworms, chopped apple, shredded suet and mealworm crumble.
In additions, I have several peanut feeders which are normally visited by various tits but also, occasionally, by woodpeckers and wild parakeets.
Of course, there is always fresh water. Can anybody suggest anything else that would be beneficial?
Normally, there are wrens in the garden but I haven't seen them for the past couple of months. I wonder if they survived the first cold snap.
Last night it was minus 14 degrees in my garden, and very cold during the day. We have noticed that some birds (starlings, house sparrow, song thrush in particular) are ocassionally standing on one foot, alternating the foot from time to time. They are also squatting down to feed so that their legs are under the fluffed up breast feathers. These behavoirs seem to suggest that standing on the cold snow is uncomfortable so the birds are trying to relieve the discomfort.
Like Daniel, we have moorhens visiting the garden (our garden is near a stream), also two pairs of mallards and twelve pheasents yesterday.