Who Saved Cock-Robin?

As I write it’s mid-December, the weather is still extraordinarily mild and there are still some autumn berries on trees and hedgerows. For our local birds it’s been a great winter so far...

...but forecasters have predicted a very cold snap in the New Year (who knows, they might be right) and perhaps by the time you read this it will already be here.  Freezing weather means a lot of birds, especially the smaller ones like robins, wrens and blue tits can die from starvation, and it’s the time you can help them most. By providing food and water regularly you’re likely to be rewarded by a greater variety of birds visiting your garden, and watching them can be a really pleasurable part of your daily routine as well as a good way to teach children about wildlife.

A healthy, well-fed bird can survive in very low temperatures because its fat layer and feathers provide very effective insulation. But to keep this fat and get energy for warming themselves, the smaller birds in particular have to spend a lot of their time feeding, eating as much as 30% of their own body-weight each day, and finding it during a cold snap can be a real challenge. At times like this, high-energy, high-fat foods are what they really need: peanuts (but not salted or dry-roasted) and fat-balls are ideal. You can make your own bird cake by pouring melted fat onto a mix of seeds, nuts, dried fruit, oatmeal, cheese, bread or cake and stirring it up before letting it set in a suitable container. Bird seed mixtures that contain lots of flaked maize, sunflower seeds and peanuts are good, as are all kinds of kitchen scraps, fruits like raisins and sultanas, cooked rice and dog biscuits softened by soaking, but try to avoid salted foods which are harmful to them.

Bird-tables are probably the best way to feed birds and keep them safe from cats and other predators, but it’s even better if you can provide a variety of feeding stations (hanging bags, seed-feeders attached to fence-posts and trees etc) to suit different species. Ideally you should put food out first thing in the morning and in very cold weather it may be worth adding some in the afternoon too to help them get through the cold night ahead. If you’re putting out a block of food like a fat-ball, try to secure it in place so one of our greedy local gulls can’t fly away with the whole thing in one go!

Many people help birds with food, but in very cold weather finding water is even more vital to their survival. Not only do they drink it, they use it in their daily routine to keep their feathers clean and fit for flight. When there is day after day of freezing weather you can really help local birds by providing water for them to drink and bathe in and keeping it ice-free.

Ideally a bird-bath should be shallow (up to 2 ½” or 8cm) and, as with bird-tables, sited somewhere that cats will find it difficult to reach or out in the open where there is no cover for them to lurk in. And of course it should be somewhere you can see it from comfort. Hanging a feeder nearby will help attract birds to a new bath. Ideally you should change the water or at least add fresh water every few days, and clean it when it gets dirty. Use only pure water and never add salt or anti-freeze (it’s been done). If you don’t have or don’t want an ornamental bird-bath then lots of other household items, like wide shallow bowls, baking trays or even dustbin lids, can be pressed into service. Floating a small ball or a cork on the surface can help to stop it freezing over by blowing about in the wind, but in very cold weather try to visit the bath each morning to break and remove any ice on the surface.

If you’ve made the effort to provide food and water but it just seems to be ignored then don’t be disappointed – birds are creatures of habit and it can take them a while to find out about new sources of food and water and lose their shyness. Persist and you’ll probably find that as other sources become unavailable they’ll be on the lookout for new ones and find yours. In cold weather birds tend to stay together in flocks and day-after-day you can have none at all, then suddenly lots appear. Once they’ve started to visit and included your garden in their routine, they quickly become dependent on the food you supply so it’s important to keep feeders topped up with fresh food and to remove any stale leftovers. Keep on feeding until the milder spring weather arrives and natural food sources such as insects start to appear.

Have no doubt, your help can really make a difference to our local wild bird population and you’ll be rewarded by the sight and sound of them all year round.

For more advice on helping birds through the winter, visit the RSPB website: www.rspb.org.uk

A special offer for our readers!

Garden wildlife suppliers Wiggly Wigglers have offered our readers ‘two for the price of one’ on bags of home-grown English sunflower seeds – perfect for bird-feeding this winter. You can call them on 0800 216990 or order online at  www.wigglywigglers.co.uk

Product code: sunflowers PO229 at £7.50 (delivery £2.50). Offer limited to one per household, must be used before the end of February. Quote redemption code ‘Hastings’.