Feed the birds..

by Alan Titchmarsh

With rising birdseed prices, you may wonder about the best way of feeding feathery garden visitors without breaking the bank. For a start, a lot of kitchen scraps could go out for the birds. They’ll enjoy stale bread, biscuits, cake and pastry, but what’s really worthwhile in winter is fat, so save up cheese rinds, bits of fat trimmed off the Sunday joint or left on the plates, and left-over cooking fat including used oil from your deep frier.

Mix it up with crumbled bread etc to make ‘bird cake’ and press it into an old flower pot or half coconut shell, and hang it up in a tree; birds will soon find it and tuck in, yet its safe from rodents so there’s no need to worry about attracting unwelcome visitors. When it comes to filling your usual bird feeders, you might economise by choosing a ‘winter mixture’ that contains a high proportion of wheat; this will attract a lot of larger birds such as blackbirds, collared doves or even pheasants to eat grain that’s been dropped on the ground by smaller birds, who prefer smaller seeds.

In an urban garden, a slightly costlier mixture made up of small seeds and broken sunflower hearts might be a better bet; put out in squirrel-proof feeders it’s fairly safe from both feral pigeons or ‘tree rats’ who’d otherwise scoff the lot.

But you can make quite a saving by buying birdseed in bulk – though you do need a clean dry dustbin (metal or heavy-duty plastic) with close-fitting lid, and space in a shed or garage to store it in, otherwise you’ll attract mice. (It’s also vital to keep bulk birdseed dry; if it gets damp it goes mouldy so birds won’t touch it).

Peanuts are always popular with birds, but here its worth buying only in small quantities and using them straight away as they quickly go mouldy – and buy good quality nuts in the first place since many now carry a fungal organism that’s toxic to birds, so if you’re going to feed peanuts its worth paying extra for ones that are RSPB approved, available from the shops at their reserves or by mail order from their catalogue or website. But you can still be bird-friendly without the expense, by recycling tastefully. 

Shop online and help bird conservation at the same time with the RSPB.