Feeding Wildbirds in your garden
SEED CAKE
First choose your container, half coconut shell, yoghurt pot or margarine tub etc., then punch a hole in the base and knot in a piece of string for the purpose of hanging the finished meal.
Collect your ingredients as follows:
Wild bird seed
Melted fat/lard
Moistened stale bread crumbs
Biscuit tin crumbs
Suet
Mix all but the fat together in a bowl. fill your chosen container to two thirds full with the mixture.
Pour on the melted fat.
Leave to set.
Hang up for the birds.
An alternative to hanging is to turn out the seed cake directly onto the bird table.
SCRAP PUDDING
Choose a container to use in the kitchen as a scrap box and leave in a convenient place ready to fill with:
Pastry trimmings
Bacon rind
Apples past their best - windfalls
Potatoes - cooked
Scraps of meat - cooked
Rice and pasta - cooked
Cheese
Any other bits you may have left over avoiding salted foods.
Finely chop all the ingredients you have collected, then make up as for the seed cake and hang out for the birds.
OTHER IDEAS
Potatoes cooked, particularly jacket potatoes - skins will be picked clean.
Bread or cake - pre-soaked to prevent swelling once the bird has swallowed it.
Pasta and rice - pre-cooked to prevent swelling.
Cat food - small amounts for the meat eaters.
Windfall apples- I usually peel and quarter them.
Raw pastry stuck on to the fence, on a bird feeder or in a tree, can be rolled in wild bird food, or finely chopped food scraps.
FOR HANGING
You can buy refillable containers for peanuts and seed, make sure that the nuts you buy have ‘approved' stamped on the packaging and a good mixture of wild bird seed is best. You can also buy fat balls from pet shops if you haven't time to make the bird pudding yourself, these need to be squeezed to loosen the filling before hanging them out for the birds.
WOODEN POSTS
If you have wooden posts in the garden you can bore in some holes and fill them with the following:
Peanut butter
Peanuts
Suet
Minced beef
Cheese
Fat
Either of the pudding mixtures
WATER
Remember fresh water (kept from freezing in Winter) is very important, not only for drinking but to enable the birds to bathe and preen to keep their plumage in good condition. A shallow container is best, (I use an old grill pan) with stepping stones in the base.
Only put out as much food as the birds can eat, leftovers must be removed to avoid attracting rodents! Keep your feeders and bird table clean in order to prevent bacterial infection.
Now sit back and watch, see how many different birds visit your feeding stations, perhaps you will attract some you haven't seen before.
