Help your feathered friends during the lean months by providing food, water and shelter.
As frosty nights draw in, it is important that wildlife enthusiasts and gardeners remember to set up and clean bird boxes and hang and fill bird feeds in anticipation of the lean months ahead.
Birds are an essential part of any garden – not only are they relaxing to watch, with their sounds, colours and movement – but most species live on insects that are not beneficial to gardens, so they help stave off bugs and insects that can damage plants.
According to the British Trust for Ornithology, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and the RSPB, birds such as the willow tit, house sparrow and spotted flycatcher are falling in numbers.
By supporting birds throughout winter, we help them to survive severe winter weather and therefore to be in good condition to breed successfully in spring.
Dobbies stock a whole range of high quality bird feeds, nest boxes and healthy treats, and the more birds like the food left out for them, the more you will see of them in your garden.
As long as the ground is not frozen and plants are container grown, you can still add plants to your garden that encourage and feed birds across the winter months. It is also a good time for planting all trees and shrubs, as well as hedges.
An evergreen climber, Ivy has glossy, green, pointy leaves. Its berries ripen in winter when most other berries have already been eaten and it also grows in most soils and conditions. Many birds, such as blackbirds and thrushes, eat the berries.
Holly is also a wonderfully Christmassy evergreen shrub that attracts, amongst others, thrushes, robins and finches who use it for nesting and blackbirds, redwings and song thrushes eat the berries.
Most varieties of cotoneaster, pyracantha and viburnum are also popular sources of food. Pyracantha (firethorn) produces a fantastic show of red, orange or yellow fruit in the autumn and winter, contoneaster grows quickly and is a large evergreen shrub with dark green elliptical leaves and round red berries that persist over winter, whilst viburnum’s are hardy shrubs with bunches of small, bright red, fleshy fruit and attractive dark green foliage that turns red in autumn.
Another option is planting hedges like elder and hawthorn and soft fruit like gooseberries and brambles – you can take your pick really. The more varied, the greater variety of birds you are likely to attract.
Dobbies are able to give advice and information to customers about the best type of food for birds and the different varieties of plants that encourage wildlife to visit, and try to promote the importance of feeding birds all year round.
