A Monthly Publication

By Dave Hawkins. Visitor and Publicity Officer.

Titchwell Marsh RSPB.

Last winter was one of the hardest we have had for many years, forcing even more birds than normal into our gardens looking for food and water to help them survive the long cold winter.

Putting out food and water to help wild birds survive the winter enables them to enter spring fit and healthy and then to go on and raise healthy chicks next summer! Feeding garden birds is also an excellent way to kick start a child’s interest in the fabulous world of wildlife.

There are many different types of bird food available from windfall apples to sunflower seeds and fat balls to mealworms. An excellent way to start is with a simple table or feeder seed mix for the finches; plus fat balls for the tits and woodpeckers.

There are many different ways of presenting food to birds from simply scattering it on the ground through to bird tables and seed feeders. A simple bird table is easy to make and makes them easier to observe. Bird cakes are also fun to make by mixing fat with seeds and then filling a yoghurt carton or half a coconut with the resulting mixture. A piece of string tied through the carton will help you hang it up.

What birds to might you see? Well in addition to the regular chaffinches, blue and great tits, robins and blackbirds; once you have started to feed you will find many new birds coming to your feeding station. These might include goldfinch, brambling and siskin; great spotted woodpeckers just love fat balls and you may even get fieldfare or redwing which are winter visitors from the continent coming down to windfall apples.

You can buy all your garden bird feeding needs from the bird-feeding centre at Titchwell Marsh RSPB where we have over twenty bird feeders in daily use. Lots of information about feeding garden birds can be found at http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/feeding