Winter Bird Care

It’s really important that we look after our garden birds and help them get the nutrition they need to see them through the cold winter spell and early spring. In particular, when there’s just not as much food around in the natural environment.

Really good quality seed mix is going to encourage those birds and help to keep them in the best health. And if you get a good quality mix that contains a mixture of small and larger seed, then you should get a good array of different garden birds visiting.

For example, smaller seeds are favoured by the house sparrow. The garden bird which visited our gardens most frequently over the last couple of years. Finches, such as siskin and reed bunting also prefer the smaller seed.

Larger seeds are the preference of the tits and some of the other finches, like the green finch and the nuthatch as well. Their favourite would be the sunflower seed.

When you are positioning the bird feeder, you want to position it four to six feet from the ground. Or if you have a cat, or a cat which frequently visits your garden, it’s worth putting it even higher. If you have birds nesting in your garden – don’t put the feeder right next to where the birds are nesting because they like to be able to observe the feeder to choose when they will then like to come and feed.

It’s a really good idea to only put in enough food that’s only going to be taken every couple of days. Giving you plenty of opportunity for the whole chamber of the bird feeder to be emptied and then you can clean it. Make sure it is thoroughly dry before you refill it.