As you stock up on chocolate eyeballs and candy fangs for eager trick or treaters, have a think about some Halloween goodies for garden birds too, says the RSPB. As you are aware, Feed the Birds Day is this weekend (Yay!) To mark the time when the clocks go back, daylight hours decrease and birds turn to us for help finding enough food to survive the chilly nights. At the same time as the ghosts, ghouls, witches and wizards come knocking at your door for treats on Halloween. Garden birds turn to our help for supplementary food too. Natural food will become much harder to find in the coming weeks, especially so if we get prolonged ice and snow cover and plants become covered with snow, berry crops come to an end and lakes, rivers and ponds become frozen over. Garden birds will rely on the extras that we provide, and many inexpensive, everyday food that we buy for ourselves is an ideal treat for birds too. Here’s a Halloween menu for garden birds: · Fat including suet, is popular with tits, woodpeckers, thrushes and wrens. (Not from roasting tins)· Cheese is a favourite with robins, dunnocks, blackbirds and song thrushes. Mild grated cheese is best.· Potatoes, baked, cooled and opened up, roasted and even mashed will be enjoyed by wildfowl.· Dried fruits like raisins, sultanas and currants are enjoyed by blackbirds, song thrushes and robins.· Fruit like apples and pears, including bruised and part rotten ones, are popular with all thrushes, tits and starlings. Also suitable are cooked or uncooked pastry, cooked rice, dry porridge oats and other breakfast cereals. The RSPB’s Richard Bashford says: “I’m sure many of us won’t be able to help ourselves by slipping an extra bag of sweets or packet of chocolate bars in our trolleys ready for the eager faces on our doorsteps this Halloween so why not do the same for garden birds? “It’s even cheaper as many of the treats they enjoy will already be going in your trolleys like fruit, cereals and cheese.” For more information on the RSPB’s Feed the Birds Day and what to put out in your garden for birds this winter, visit www.rspb.org.uk/feedthebirds or join in our Live Q&A at 11 am –12am on Friday the 29th October!
In this months 'Birdwatch' magazine, there's a headline ''Junk Food'' hinders breeding, and there's a link to the research paper.
http:/tinyurl.com/34x63zf
interesting.
Great .Info.,so a little bump from me
It's valuable information to know what kitchen scraps we can safely provide. Breakfast cereals? I have wondered about whether it would be helpful to sprinkle the leftover crumbs out the box.. Is any breakfast cereal okay? If it's a sugary one, which most of them are, how does it rate in nutrition value for wild birds? Do birds need extra 'instant carbs' in the winter like we feel we do? I've tried, before, leaving the remnants of corn on the cob outside (in winter) but it seemed to remain untouched. Cooked rice? Doesn't rice become extremely toxic after a day or two? There's got to be a league table of the wild bird nutritional value of kitchen waste somewhere? Something that will tell us what precautions to take and how good for them particular scraps are? Cheese is one that I'm baffled at! Our British wild birds can digest dairy? I suppose it's just another form of fat like lard...
Anyway. I must take issue ;)..
"To mark the time when the clocks go back, daylight hours decrease and birds turn to us for help finding enough food to survive the chilly nights. "
Daylight hours decrease naturally.. Humans find the sudden nature of the afternoon darkness a bit inhibiting (when the clocks go back) but wildlife should not notice anything other than a general shortening of available feeding time (they don't have alarm clocks to adjust :)!!). I thought we were supposed to keep our feeders full, all year round, to replace diminishing natural resources? Do you think we should be providing more instant carbs this time of year? All things sugary? Because they have less time to feed and are not needing the same sort of nutrients as they would during chick seasons? Can birds eat chocolate or is it toxic for them?
It's an interesting study, Soosin, do you think that feeding birds is going to have a cumulitive effect? You see, contrary to the terrible predictions based upon the garden bird counts earlier in the year (which said that the smaller Tit species had suffered terribly from the longer winter) the small birds (Coal and Blue Tits particularly) are doing really well locally. Loads in the garden (proportionally) so that must mean that there are lots around. Is this study saying that birds are breeding more frequently to produce a less than representative increase in numbers? They're working harder, feeding more, yet producing less viable nestings? Well, that's a curious thing.. It makes no sense. If this is true, and not just a blip, it's biologically fascinating for all species (including humans perhaps). If we're not providing anything that birds shouldn't be able to find in nature but just making it easier to find it. Mother nature is stepping in to balance that ease of resources. The struggle to survive holds unexpected genetic benefits (well, Darwinism, yet who'd have thought it could take effect so quickly)? I'm trying to get my head around what this means...
Hi wigglywormhole,
Any breakfast cereal is acceptable birdfood, although you need to be careful only to put out small quantities at a time. It is best offered dry, with a supply of drinking water nearby, since it quickly turns into pulp once wetted. Porridge oats must never be cooked, since this makes them glutinous and could harden around a bird's beak. Uncooked porridge oats are readily taken by a number of bird species.
Cooked rice, brown or white (without salt added) is beneficial and readily accepted by all species during severe winter weather. Uncooked rice may be eaten by birds such as pigeons, doves and pheasants but is less likely to attract other species.
As regards cheese & chocolate: A bird's gut is not designed to digest milk and it can result in serious stomach upsets, or even death. Birds can, however, digest fermented dairy products such as cheese. Mild grated cheese can be a good way of attracting robins, wrens and dunnocks. Because of the high sugar and milk content, we do not recommend putting out chocolate.
Although winter feeding benefits birds most, food shortages can occur at any time of the year. By feeding the birds year round, you'll give them a better chance to survive the periods of food shortage whenever they may occur. At this time of year, put out food and water on a regular basis. In severe weather, feed twice daily if you can: in the morning and in the early afternoon. Birds require high energy (high fat) foods during the cold winter weather to maintain their fat reserves to survive the frosty nights. Use only good quality food and scraps.
Always adjust the quantity given to the demand, and never allow uneaten foods to accumulate around the feeders. Once you establish a feeding routine, try not to change it as the birds will become used to it and time their visits to your garden accordingly.
Claire
Cheers Mrs. T,
Definately no chocolate (unfermented dairy) then. I don't suppose many people have 'leftover chocolate' anyway.. We feed on demand and, with certain things, the demand has meant filling certain feeders in the morning then having to top them up in the afternoon. So it's rare that anything gets a chance to rot. They've been ravenous all year. They all seem to love that no mess sunflower seed mix and I would say that it's definately the best thing for attracting the largest variety of birds. A feeder full of that never lasts a whole day. I reckon there are birds stockpiling food nearer their roosts. All three species of Tit, in our garden, have learned how to lift the lid on the Squirrel feeder (usually other way round - I know - Squirrels raid bird feeders) and fly off with whole peanuts which is okay this time of year (no chick choking risk). There's a Nuthatch, however, which has recently learned to do it and he/she is flying off with a peanut every thirty seconds sometimes. Has to be storing them. It amazes me how adaptable birds are. Things like Sparrows learning to cling on to hanging feeders just like Finches.