remember the birds folks...

[Nicos]

Wayne's thread has just prompted me to remind you to pop some food out for the birds folk and WATER as it's frozen in this cold snap and they can't last long without it.
We have a small artificial stream with isn't frozen and there are loads of birds popping in for a drink ( bit like the Gardener's Rest!)

[SarzWix]

Tried to break the ice in a tub-trug, which has a few bricks & a bit of wood sticking out for a perch...Put me foot through the side
I've set up a plastic toy box now instead
Got hordes of starlings, 2 pairs of blackbirds & a robin, feasting on the apple windfalls in the middle of the grass, blue tits & coal tits eating the seed/bud thingys on the 'stags antlers' (Sumach?) and a few unidentified others eating the breadcrumbs etc I chuck out every morning.

[Two_Sheds]

I make a lardy cake every week for the birds. I have blackbirds, a wren and I think I saw a thrush too, but tis the Darlings (starlings) that get most of it.
Apparently my brassicas are grown for the woodpigeons.

[SueA]

I've got a coconut filled with bird fat food hung up & a couple of feeders, I daren't put water or anything on the ground because of the cats but the birds are welcome to dip into the little pond for a drink. Just reminded me that when I was walking by the old river here today it was frozen apart from one little clear spot & the seagulls, ducks & geese were skating on it!
Pics of the river.

[smallblueplanet]

Saw a male and female Bullfinch feeding on (not sure) honeysuckle/rudbeckia (I do know the difference, lol, but I couldn't quite see what they'd perched on!!!)? in the border this morning - very cold out today.

[seasprout]

Is it me.. or has the price of bird food really rocketed this year..?

[Nicos]

What fun SueA!!! must have been funny to watch!

Price of bird food???? Never really noticed as I always seem to do it as an impulse purchase when en route to the till.
Everything seems expensive these days

[Two_Sheds]

Is it me.. or has the price of bird food really rocketed this year..?

We get mixed seed 89p a kilo from local petstore, or a quid from Poundshop, then stretch it out with cheapest oats (15p?) basic raisins (44p) and mix it half and half into melted suet (£1 or so). Pour into container (Xmas pudding ones ideal) and freeze. It lasts longer than loose seed, which the sparrows tend to just scatter all over the floor.

The homemade are much more popular than store bought Fat Balls.

[Madasafish]

We buy from our local petstore (grain millers) 1kg mixed birdseed at 45p, crushed peanuts at 76p and feed 8 wild pheasants , about 20 blackbirds, loads of smaller birds , about 20 jackdaws and what looks like 1,000,000 starlings.

[Flummery]

We've got a new 20kg sack of seed in the hall now. £7.49 I think. A couple do us the winter. We also use peanuts and I buy lard in the winter.

[Nicos]

Ooohhh Flum....that's a good price ( I've been checking up on these things since I realized I could have been vastly overpaying!!!)

[Nicos]

We have a woodpecker in France with a really strange, insistant call, and it's got a green/beige chest- I really want to encourage these birds ( their main predictor are the buzzards- not cats like we have here in our UK gardens.

( think I must be going through some sort of identity/era/ rural:urban crisis here!!!!!)

We always feed the birds in our garden- fat/seeds/nuts/peanuts....just high enough to entertain the cats but frustrate them!!!!

[wellie]

I had some left-over mashed potato in the fridge, and Trousers put that out for the birds today, because the temperature didn't get above -4. They LOVED it!

[Hazel at the Hill]

And there was me this afternoon fishing out worms from the wormery for the daft blackbirds who wouldn't come back till the worms had wiggled off!

It's mashed potato for THEM tomorrow - it's not so mobile!

[smallblueplanet]

We've got a new 20kg sack of seed in the hall now. £7.49 I think. A couple do us the winter. We also use peanuts and I buy lard in the winter.

We used to get 25kg of branded, (can't remember who though sorry) Wild Bird Food from Taylors agricultural merchant in South Wingfield, Derbys for £7.50, but this was a few years ago. Also it did used to contain a fair amount of wheat & corn in it (kept the rats happy!!!).