The RSPB has issued new garden bird feeding guidelines for spring and summer, but there’s another way to ensure wild birds keep visiting your garden
Greenfinch numbers are in decline across the UK(Image: Peter Clayton Photography via Getty Images)
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has issued an urgent appeal calling on people to stop putting out seeds for garden birds from May 1 — but one expert gardener has revealed a smart workaround to keep birds visiting your garden throughout the year.
The bird charity introduced new guidance which took effect this month and will run until October 31. The RSPB has warned gardeners, bird lovers and amateur ornithologists against offering birds seeds or peanuts, amid concerns that feeding birds during spring and summer months, while well-intentioned, is in fact helping to spread disease.
The organisation says birds have suffered a ‘worrying decline’ in British gardens, partly due to an illness called trichomonosis. The ‘highly contagious’ disease can spread rapidly wherever birds gather in large numbers, such as around garden bird feeders.
Writing in her One Garden Against the World Substack, Kate Bradbury suggested considering bird-friendly planting as an alternative. You may already have some of these plants thriving in your garden, unwittingly drawing robins and sparrows back to your borders in search of food, , reports the Express.
Bradbury said: “Grow more plants like sunflowers, teasels and ivy, which provide natural sources of seeds and also insects.”
The RSPB says birds have experienced a ‘worrying decline’ in British gardens(Image: Ben Andrew)
Since plants represent smaller food sources with reduced surface area for diseases to transmit and are dispersed across your garden, they present significantly lower risk to British birds. You might also consider planting Zinnias, Echinacea and Black-eyed Susan alongside shrubs including Elderberry, Viburnum, and Honeysuckle, which offer sustenance for birds throughout the summer months, according to Wild Way.
The RSPB has pointed to evidence showing that greenfinch numbers have crashed by 65% since 1979. It said: “Research has shown a worrying decline in some of our much-loved garden birds due to a disease called trichomonosis. This is a highly contagious disease and can spread where birds gather in large numbers such as at bird feeders. Greenfinches, for example, have dropped by over 65% in the last three decades – and you may have seen this decline yourself.”
Group of little birds perching on a bird feeder with sunflower seeds(Image: nitrub via Getty Images)
The latest RSPB guidance is to feed birds seasonally and safely is in place to help to “avoid the spread of disease”.
These steps include regularly cleaning and relocating feeders each week, refreshing bird bath water daily, and steering clear of flat-surface feeding stations like bird tables.
Experts also suggest suspending the provision of seeds and peanuts from May 1 through to October 31 as “stopping the spread of disease is a challenge we can’t tackle alone”.
RSPB advised: “We hope that this nation of bird-lovers will be keen to help garden birds by following our advice to feed seasonally and feed safely. After all, for most people who feed birds, an important motivation is to help birds survive.”
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