Bird Care - Helping the Wildlife

January - Feeding the birds

I acknowledge that I'm becoming increasingly eccentric in the attention I give to this particular task. I even go to the supermarket later on in the day especially sometimes because I've discovered that in the last hour or so before they close, bread gets reduced to about 20p or even 10p a loaf. So for less than a pound there's enough food for a few days at much less than the cost of those fancy bird food "cakes" and the like that go for considerably more in the shops.

One thing I've noticed is that no matter what I put out for the birds, it's always the white bread that goes first. Perhaps it's the bird equivalent of fast food, or maybe it's more comforting when it's cold and miserable.

Bread, so I recall, is not supposed to be the best thing for our feathered friends, but it can't be so bad as it's just processed grain, and mainly a physical process rather than chemical. The birds also get just about all other left overs too. At the moment, they've a large lump of fat that came off the ham joint we cooked yesterday (we had so much food over Christmas, the ham sat around uncooked until the 30th before there was room in the fridge to accommodate it!) the large cut-up rind from said joint, most of a pizza I overcooked yesterday, the remains of a chicken carcass (now virtually pecked clean) and a (now empty) bowl of readybrek my son decided he didn't want (I suspect the remains of the family tin of chocolates that were winking at him at the time had something to do with this). The squirrels are particularly partial to cold readybrek. Virtually anything we eat (and leave) the birds will eat too. 

The trick seems to be spread it around a bit. The smaller birds like to eat off the bird table, about 6 feet off the ground, blackbirds and larger birds such as magpies prefer to eat off the ground and others such as robins take it from either place or the top of the old garden table that's on the lawn (yes I know I said take them in over the winter, but it's on its last legs and I've new one taking shape in the work-shop - well as close as a few planks can be to the shape of a table anyway).

February

Rory - resident robin

Winter's over as far as my resident robin and his robin rivals and blackbird chums are concerned. The birds are to be seen more and more with twigs, straw and the like in their beaks, and they are all more interested in each other, as mates or rivals, almost as much as they are in the food that I put out.

I mentioned last month about how the birds seem to like white bread better than brown and that it can't really hurt them that much when compared to the alternative of starving. Rachel Simpson sent in the following by email by way of explanation:

May

Wildlife antics. As well as the plants waking up, the wildlife has also woken up and is to be seen out in the garden entertaining me on a regular basis. The grey squirrels in particular are earning their keep (in walnuts later in the year from the tree at the bottom of the garden) I love to watch them run up and down around the trees in three dimensions chasing each other and leaping branches. It's almost as if it makes no difference to speed or agility whether they're the right way up, upside down, spiraling up a tree trunk or on the flat with their tails doing that thing where they follow them around a split second behind, a sort of furry motion trail.

I tidied up my ornamental grasses recently, pulling out dead leaves that I chucked under the shrubs at the back of the border. The house sparrows have discovered that these, now nicely dried out make great stuff for lining nests, so often when I'm sat in front of the computer just a couple of yards away they're arriving and leaving with beaks full of this dried grass.

There's some song thrushes too that saw the same wildlife programme on themselves that I saw. One of them has dutifully set up an anvil just outside the patio door - about 4-5 feet away from me when I'm at my keyboard - and brings snails on a regular basis to bash to bits so he (she?) can get at the juicy innards. There's a pair of males that I've seen a couple of times heads down pointing towards each other in the middle of the lawn, before rushing together and flying up into the air a few feet, wings, legs, beaks and feathers all over the pace.

If there's one thing I've noticed that the birds and squirrels like a lot it's when I cut the lawn. They seem to really appreciate being able to walk or run around easily and not have to wade through the "undergrowth".

June - Rory (resident robin)

How time flies and the youngsters get bigger and stronger. Pa blackbird started on the "you're big enough to fend for yourself now" act yesterday. 

Rather tatty (but less tatty than previously) youngster was following him about enjoying the freedom and more easily available grubs that result from a newly cut lawn, when fed up with the ever open beak pointed in his direction, Pa turned. Poor shell shocked youngster completely bemused with what was going on as the source of all food suddenly jumped up wings flapping and squawking gave him the message that his presence was no longer required or even tolerated.

There's not been much sign from the robins recently, I occasionally see an odd one around, maybe they've been through this process already and the youngster is off on his own learning how to feed himself during the easier days of summer before it all becomes more serious later in the year.

July

Sunbathing season again for the local birds again. They look quite ungainly on the lawn, usually in the middle or somewhere fairly safe, one wing spread out sideways, beak partly open, feathers fluffed out and looking up to the sky. At first they look for all the world like a cat has got them, but soon perk up if they see you and then adopt the air of some-one who has unexpectedly been caught unawares on the loo.  It's an attempt to help rid the bird of parasites such as fleas by exposing them to the sunlight that doesn't normally reach them. I'm sure there's also more than an element of hedonism in there too, if birds could purr, this is when they'd do it.