Feeding Wild Birds and Encouraging them to your Garden

FEEDING WILD BIRDS: DRAWBACKS

This past winter was particularly cold in some countries, and although the wildlife and birds will survive without your intervention, by putting food out for the birds will encourage them to visit you on a more regular basis. Half the fun in encouraging wild birds to your garden of homestead is that you never know what variety of bird will visit next.

There are some drawbacks to feeding wild birds that you should be aware of before you start. The first one being that if you have cats, or there are cats in the neighbourhood make sure that you are not indirectly feeding the cats. If you find that you are, it is best that you don't feed the birds, or you modify your nets and bird feeders so that they are not accessible to cats. The other problem you may encounter is that if there is a lot of grain lying around you may also encourage rats. Placing a PVC sleeve over any stake you may have used where you hang your feeders from will make it too slippery for either cats or rats to access.

FEEDING WILD BIRDS: WHAT TO FEED THEM

Having gotten that out of the way, feeding wild birds is one of life's pleasures whether one lives in the country or not. You may decide to buy a bird feeder from a commercial supplier, or you can quite easily make one out of old orange bags, onion bags or similar material. Know, however, that different types of birds feed at different levels. Therefore, if you wish to entice a variety of birds it then makes sense to place the feeders at ground level, at tabletop level, and have feeders hanging from trees. In any event, always make sure that where you place them is in a sheltered position near trees and shrubs where they can fly to safety, if necessary.

Peanuts, Niger Seed (Thistle Seed), Millet and Sunflower seeds can all be used to feed your birds. Black-oil Sunflower seeds will attract the greatest variety of birds to your garden. Take care not to overfeed in the beginning as you don't want the seed to spoil and make your feathered visitors ill. Increase the amount when your bird flocks increase. You can use the orange bags stuffed with suet, which you can get from your butcher, and hang these up in the trees during the colder months. Never feed them suet in the warmer months as it will spoil and go rancid very quickly. Suet will attract woodpeckers and other insect-eating birds.

For those of you who live in frost-free areas and want to entice hummingbirds into your garden, you can leave some saucers of sugar water around. On a tabletop where you have some slices of fruit and some mince meat, this will also bring feathered friends. Orange halves, apples, melons and grapes are firm favourites.

Bird seed can be bought commercially or you can make your own. The problem with a lot of commercial seed is that often it contains seeds that are cheap and used as 'fillers' that are not sought out by the birds. When the birds arrive they will pick out the sunflower seeds and the millet and leave the oats, buckwheat etc. which is then rather a waste. You can make your own birdseed quite easily. The ratios for a small quantity to start with would be; 1 cup white millet, 1 cup cracked corn and 2 1/2 cups black-oil sunflower seeds.

If you do start to feed birds from your garden, you will certainly attract a number of visitors. However, they will also expect to be fed on a regular basis and will look to you for their source of food before foraging elsewhere. So if you start, it will be for the long term.