How To Feed Your Garden Birds

welcome to wild at home the show where we help you develop a more meaningful connection with the sky Thea and with flora and fauna for the benefit of mental and physical health we recognize that getting outside can work wonders for our well-being but for some accessing the outdoors can prove challenging that's why we want to explore some practical tips and activities they can help you reconnect with your local patch whilst building resilience and a greater sense of purpose [Music] in today's episode while at home I'm here in my friends garden they've recently moved house and I've been given the task of attracting as many different species to this space as I possibly can so that is what we're going to be exploring today how to freeze your garden birds we're going to be breaking down the vast array of feeds and feeders into a simplified guide to help you attract as many different species to your garden space but if you don't have a garden don't worry there's plenty of things we can do with even a smaller space or actually even a window ledge to track garden birds as well but first why should we even feed our garden birds there are so many benefits to feeding your garden birds here in the UK in the last 50 years we've seen a vast reduction in many bird species numbers so by feeding them you're just happen to support their populations your free energy to help them fly and proteins for feather and egg production but the benefits don't just stop with the birds nope we get benefits too by feeding your garden birds we get an insight into their world and we get to enjoy their colors and their interactions from the comfort of our own homes we can practice our ID skills and actually the practice of watching birds can be a very mindful and therapeutic thing and give us a wonderful sense of purpose if you can't get to a shop you might have some foods good for birds in your cupboards they enjoy raisins porridge oats grated cheese chopped apples and make sure you're giving them some water in a shallow bowl as well okay so I mentioned we were going to look at the different variety of seeds and feeders available on the market and the idea is that having a variety just means you get a greater diversity of bird species in your garden so starting down this end them we've got seed mixes now these can vary hugely in price by investing a little bit more you're probably going to have a better quality seed mix meaning there won't be so many split peas and lentils in there which most of the time are just discarded by the birds they can get to the higher quality higher energy as sunflower seeds sunflower hearts and to the peanut bits and there as well so these are both actually quite poor quality seed mixes but we're just trying to use them up and you can see they vary a lot in color and actually these ones here the sunflower seeds as you can see they're not they're black they're actually in there they're show in their husk have not been d husked so what you'll find is that the birds are going to need to break this in order to get to the calorific sunflower seed in the middle and therefore that husk will be discarded just like split peas and the lentils and potentially make a bit of a mess in your garden so if you are looking to save a bit of time you don't want to be cleaning up after the birds in the same way then investing a little bit more quality hire expensive seed mix where the the seeds have already been prepared it can just be a good little investment so that's just a little tip something to consider and actually these can be clipped into your seed mixes can you put into hanging feeders like this one or into tray feeders like this one and they can be elevated or on the ground and seed mixtures whether they are in trays or in the hanging feeder they just attract pretty much every bird you can imagine that will want to access this food so you're pointed bill feeders you Rob into wrens yeah your black birds will like it if it's in the feeder like this one but then if it's in the hanging video you can attract two sparrows you can get your tits and sometimes starlings as well I like to access that's just as well so just having both can be a really great way to open up the door to a greater diversity of bird species up next then we have got peanuts so peanuts are an amazing source of calories and proteins as I'm sure those of us who eat it I'm very aware and these are actually specially prepared for birds in a sense that they don't have any aflatoxins so they're removed from these peanuts and it's crucial that they are removed it'll always say on the packaging if they're free of ethyl toxins because they can be toxic clues in the word for the birds in your garden you do not want to have a special auxins in the peanuts because that'll potentially kill them off another thing to consider with the peanuts whilst I really do encourage you to give them to your birds do make sure the feeder you've got has holes that's small enough so the whole peanuts can't come out if the birds try to get the peanuts and they get whole peanut they might try to swallow that or feed that to their chick and of course you can imagine that's gonna lead to choking and again fatalities so a couple of things to consider there with peanuts but these are great for Great Spotted woodpeckers again your sparrows your tits pretty much the whole range of garden birds would like to access those peanuts as well up next then we've got the suet train so I've got a mixture of things here to have a chat about first up we've got your kind of classics to it for you'll probably recognize this these can come in plastic nessing's or just like this in big bags I would always encourage you to try to avoid the plastic netting because that's just gonna end up in landfill so I'll go down the line and when you're trying to do something for the planet like feeding the birds you don't really want to undo that by landing it with that plastic so if you can get it like this what that means is you can put them into a theatre like this so you can have two or three stacked up and just keep filling that up as the birds eat them long tail tips love these we get so many it's really great so you can also get these in a sort circular shape and some of them can be actually quite attractive so you know shop around find what you like in pop your fat balls in there up next then this is a suet block so this can go into a cage like this one just slots in there like that and the birds can hang off it and peck away at that give something more interest interview I guess and this is full of I think this one's mealworms and mixed berries so you can get all sorts of mixtures from these I find quite good value because they last quite a while so that's a super block and then up next reasonably new ones of the market is these which are Stewart pellets so these would go into a feeder like your mixed seed feeder there and again the burst you just pack away at these take a bit away and get some decent fats and calories and energy into those so that's here your penance there so further down this line then we have got Ally's now not enough people give their garden birds these which are mealworms so you can get them dried like this or you can get so they're actually alive if you can stomach that and what I love about these is they really benefit you again your points of girl species your Robins your range of blackbirds you're gonna put them on a little tray like that you can have them sprinkled on the ground wherever you feel like they can access them and especially during sort the breeding season when the chicks are being reared these are just like the miracle food the birds will love these they'll grab a mouthful feed them to the chicks and that's just gonna really again have that population to flourish so that's your mealworms there and then finally on the net on the end here definitely newest to the market in these tiny little black seeds and these are Niger seeds so these are especially great at attracting your your Finch species so your gold finches your green finches things sometimes get siskins as well if they're evade their around in your area and they're tiny tiny little seeds so you can imagine these aren't gonna work in any of these feeders so if you'd like to feed Niger seeds then you're gonna need a special Niger seed feeder and basically it's just got smaller holes in it so that the seeds aren't all gonna pour out the other end and the birds can sit on there the little sticks and just peck away get a mouthful at any one time so Niger seeds are a lovely and actually if you can get gold finches and green finches into your garden that coupled with the blue and striking yellows of your your blue tips and your great tit just gonna add some lovely color and and great diversity of birds into your garden if you've only got a small space you might want to get a standing feeder like this one or a standing birdbath watching the birds clean themselves in the early spring marks is such a wonderful thing alternatively some people find window feeders successful a shallow tray that sticks to the glass that's great for attracting titts sparrows robins and more ideally you want to place your feeders about five meters away from the window so that you can watch them why is he doing the washing-up well far from with stuff in the living room make sure there's a bit of cover close by so they can hide if a bird of prey flies past but not too close to a fence where cats might look ensure you keep your feeders full for out winter as this is when the birds need the most calories and make sure you keep them clean because they can spread disease hygiene is very important now that your feeders are up it's just a waiting game the birds need to suss it out and make sure it's safe but hopefully in a couple of weeks you'll have lots of different species enjoying your new feeders let us know how you get on in the comments below and the different birds that you see you

Channel: Abbie Barnes / Spend More Time In The WILD

Views: 8,449

Rating: 4.9545455 out of 5

Keywords: Abbie barnes, Thru Hiking, Backpacking, Song Thrush Productions, Adventure, Hiking, Day Hikes, Gear review, Foraging, Walking, Mental health, wellbeing, physical health, Nature, mindfulness, Trekking, National Park, Mountain, spend more time in the wild, travel, trail, community, long distance, national trail, scotland, lake district, snowdonia, dogs, camping, wild camping, expedition, stay wild, family activities, stay at home, connect with nature, activity, garden, home, corvid-19, wildlife, rspb

Id: DR3hrcXjmKI

Length: 9min 11sec (551 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020