Winter is coming.....cuisine for wildlife!

[Guest]

If you have children then

baker ross do apple skewer jobbies https://www.bakerross.co.uk/apple-wooden-bird-feeder

or you can make cheerio hoops (piece of garden wire and cereal) the girls loved making these at an event with RSPB

or if you haven't seen them the window feed stations.

Will be trying the peanut butter feeders this winter. (My 6 year old is an animal lover and is really getting in to the wildlife side of things)

[Deanydotcom]

I have a tip for unhealthy people like myself, using old yoghurt tubs. Every time I have a fry up, or grill if slightly healthier, I trim the bacon fat and drop in the yoghurt tub, also pour the fat in, this is also repeated on other meats I cook. I also drop a few loose seed in, or cheese offcuts and then fill the tub up with a little melted lard/dripping. Once it has set, I stick a twig in the side of the tub as a perch.
These can be reused so plastic doesn’t have to be thrown away.
P.S I use unsalted meat fat as I know this to be unhealthy for the birds, it is mainly the rind that is salted so remove this before using the fat.
I love to see the different birds in my garden and allotment, they are great pest controllers. I hope this works for a few more of you, please let me know if it works for you, it might help during the upcoming RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

[Deanydotcom]

This might help people understand some good foods for birds, it’s a link to the Royal Society’s page (RSPB) so I hope that’s ok. It tells you of the fat tub I explained above but they use a half coconut shell. Hope it helps.


https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wi...ood-for-birds/

[Babru]

I have lots of seabirds flying over my garden, gulls, oyster catchers, terns mostly, but they don't stop for food.

Other than that I have blackies, sparrows and a robin. I haven't been able to get the sparrows to feed yet, but the blackies are always hungry, so I have a raised platform with a 'cage' over it (from RSPB shop) and I put pears, dried worms and smashed peanuts in every day. The blackies only like conference pears, and aren't keen on rocha etc. The robin stops in to the cage now and again too. Bigger birds can't get in.

[greenishfing]

We left a few apples on the tree in the Autumn (too high to pick). They are now being eaten by the birds in situ. I'm amazed they never fell off.

[burnie]

This is the time of year when I start to feed the birds again, first job is to make sure everything is cleaned properly to prevent the birds being poisoned. Gathering nuts and seeds from the wild is both fun and useful for the birds as long as we don't rob the wild larder too much. We have Hazelnuts nearby, too small to be worth me trying to eat them(I have tried lol), but I'm sure the birds will like them when I've shelled them.

[peanut]

In winter I keep a block of lard or dripping in the fridge, chop bits off it, melt and stir in porridge oats and any chopped nuts or sultanas I have lying about, not to make into a cake, just to put loose into saucers, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Robins etc love it!
I also leave all the leftover apples in the garden for the birds.
I feed the birds all year round with peanuts, fat balls and sunflower hearts, plus lots of the shrubs and perennials I grow have seed heads or berries for the birds too.
Got to love nature

[Plot70]

I have a single seed feeder to keep the small birds on the plot. I figure that they take more pests if I leave it at that.
They take a decent amount of caterpillars that way.
I get finches tits and sparrows.
There is a robin about too.

[annie8]

Put out some blueberries the other day and today some pumpkin and seeds which all seems to go down well with the blackbirds and thrushes particularly.

[burnie]

With more cold weather and snow forecast, the wildlife still needs a helping hand, we had over a dozen Goldfinches in the garden this morning, stunning little birds.

[annie8]

Wow I love seeing them. We get the odd one but would love to see more. Had been hoping they would come for the Niger seeds I’ve been putting in the feeder.

[Nicos]

We are still getting through loads of peanuts every day.

[burnie]

My lot have eaten a sack of peanuts a sack of sunflower seeds, half a sack of nyger seeds and almost 2 large tubs of fat balls, cost almost a £100, flippin' eating better than me lol.

[Containergardener]

What with the starlings too the food doesn't arf go down. The woodpeckers raid the fat cakes, the sunflower seeds go with the tits , nyger for the goldfinches is raided by teams of finches and then the pheasant arrives to clear up.

[Nicos]

We ran out of our uk imported supply of peanuts a few weeks ago so got a supply of mixed peanuts with shelled sunflower seeds from Germany.( We’ve not found a supplier over here for large bags at discount prices)

We’ve had easily 50 goldfinches tucking into the feeders- with all the peanuts chucked onto the floor. We were about to change feeders fora mesh one but noticed we have a pheasant arriving at dawn for his breakfast ...peanuts!

Now we have no cockerel it’s lovely to hear ’ Philippe ‘ calling out. ( I wonder if he’ll be bringing a girlfriend along soon?)

We do have several mesh feeders and spotted a woodpecker on one of them a couple of days ago...fantastic eh?