Garden birds will benefit immensely from your care and should be encouraged to come and feed in your garden from late autumn onwards. Foodstuffs should have a high fat content to ensure that the birds are able to stay warm and food reserves should be regularly topped up to reduce the likelihood of birds making wasted journeys to your garden in search of food that was present the week before. Animals will remember where food is available and will attempt to revisit if at all possible. To help garden birds through the winter months, you should hang fat balls from wire cages mounted in the boughs of trees. Do not leave balls in the pre-made plastic netting bags, as some birds, such as woodpeckers, can get their tongues caught on the wire. You should also be able to create your own fat balls should you wish, in moulds such as coconut shells or logs with holes in them. Alternative recipes for such items include peanut cakes or starlings, insect cakes for tits and berry cakes for finches. You will also be able to put out finely chopped bacon rind and grated cheese, which will be immensely welcomed by birds such as wrens.

 

More commonly, you will be able to purchase grain mixes from most shops for a small amount of money and sparrows, finches and nuthatches will enjoy the challenges posed by removing seeds from old sunflower heads saved and stored from the summer. Choose a mix with a good blend of nuts and seed. Cheap relatively useless mixes are generally inclusive of a massive amount of lentils, disliked by most birds. Using wire-mesh feeders for large nuts such as peanuts and smaller “seed cages” for tiny grain will prevent too much mess. Feed placed just off the ground, held on plates or in wire pouches, will encourage birds such as robins and dunnocks who will thrive off such offerings. Thrushes and blackbirds will equally feed off the ground but prefer foods like raisins or old apples / fruit scraps. To prevent losing other garden wildlife and to support their health over the winter, always check bonfires before lighting to avoid roasting hedgehogs! Melt holes in ponds to allow wildlife to drink, enter and leave the water. Use a hot pan of water to do this; do not attempt to crack it manually as this will traumatize the ponds’ current wildlife.

 

In following these tips, you will not only be preserving wildlife in your garden, but equally encouraging it to return in the spring too – and serve a host of welcome tasks at that time.