Hawthorn berries and even holly started turning bright red here by the end of last month and apples have been falling ridiculously prematurely. My early ‘Discovery’ and ‘Ellison’s Orange’ apples were dropping and coming away in my hands three weeks ago – when the pips were still white and the fruit was still fairly tasteless.
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Our birds are gorging themselves on the wondrous bounty, just now but it will soon end, leaving the poor wee things hungry earlier than usual. So we’ll probably have to adjust our timing for feeding them.
Birds always keep an eye out for food sources and even before the autumn bonanza dries up, they’ll notice your garden is becoming interesting. I keep the bird feed in the workshop so whenever I emerge from there and walk towards a bird feeder, I hear hopeful and excited calls from my resident tit species. Obviously I don’t succumb to their entreaties every time. Not only could I not afford it, but they’d pile on the kilos and not be able to take off fast enough to escape the local sparrow hawks.
But I put some feed out now to help the birds make the transition.
There may not be many birds around when you start feeding early like this so initially put out small amounts at a time. Let them empty a feeder before adding to it as it prevents a build up of stuck and mouldy food at the base of a feeder. This helps reduce the likelihood of disease.
And for hygiene’s sake, clean feeders regularly. This is admittedly a fair hassle and there’s no alternative to dismantling the feeder, washing with very hot water, drying and reassembling. I probably don’t do this as often as I should, but ensuring feed doesn’t build up inside does reduce the need for cleaning.
There’s a bewildering choice of feeds, ranging from very pricey live mealworms to much cheaper mixes containing mainly wheat. Unfortunately few species other than the lettuce-devouring pigeons like wheat and I can’t imagine many folk wanting to encourage them into the garden. With around 5 million pairs in the UK, they’re scarcely an endangered species.
I’ve seen that Nuthatches and Coal Tits simply throw wheat on the ground before quickly finishing the small proportion of remaining seed. So feed has to be suitable for the visiting birds. Suet balls are always popular with small birds and the cage feeders you’d use are invitingly easy to clean.
Sunflower seed is highly nutritious and very popular with smaller birds. The husks are usually discarded on the ground below as an invitation to less welcome small mammals like grey squirrels and voles. So you might prefer the more expensive shelled seed.
Although bird feeders are a nuisance when cleaning, there’s always less wastage than from a bird table. Discarded food also attracts less welcome consumers like squirrels and rats.
Feeding birds in our gardens is interesting and gives us a great chance to interact with wild species in the garden. Research also shows that when natural foods fail many bird species start relying on our gardens for help.
Plant of the week
Nasturtium ‘Orange Troika’ is a climbing/trailing nasturtium with bright orange flowers and prettily marbled leaves. It can be grown in the ground or a pot and seems to be standing up well to drought and neglect, rain and a sudden drop in temperature.
Nasturtium ‘Orange Troika’ (Image: Getty Images) Nasturtium flowers, leaves and seeds, when still green and soft, are edible and give a peppery flavour to salads and dips.
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