Food
I stand at the sink, washing out my coffee mug, and look out on the garden. After breakfast and coffee, it's always time to go out and check on the plants and the birdfeeders.
Outdoors, the temperature is around twenty-one degrees Celsius, and the day feels fresh. Certainly more comfortable than those summer days earlier in the season, when the sun beat down oppressively.
The first task in my routine, I rinse out the birdbath, a makeshift thing made out of a planter dish, stones, and bricks. This removes feathers, leaves, seeds, and whatever else might be muddying the water. Cleaner water makes for a more pleasant bath/drink. Plus, running water draws attention, and not just from birds; I have noticed that wasps often fly in for a drink as I am pouring water into the bath.
Next, I check the feeders. One, a seed feeder, lantern shaped with a circular lip running around the base that small birds can cling onto, feeding on seed that collects in the bottom. The other is a hollow ceramic cactus into which birds can enter and exit through holes on either side of the feeder.
I check the feeders for a few things. Firstly, to see what has been eaten. This is useful to check on everyday because, of course, I can top up as and when needed. Also, as I get to know how much the birds eat on a regular basis, I can better judge and adjust how much food I put out for the birds. Feeders don't need to be filled full. It is better to put out what you might expect to be eaten over two or three days. Food that is left for too long runs the risk of becoming mouldy, or attracting unwanted attention.
Checking on what is eaten from the feeders on a regular basis will also enlighten me to any changes in the feeding habits of feathery garden visitors. This could be useful for a number of reasons, such as responding to changes in behaviour and needs as seasons change, or perhaps might hint at changes in which birds are visiting the garden.
The suet feeder I check because of the reasons above, and also because, in my experience, they can be particularly vulnerable to certain circumstances. For example, during the hottest days of this summer, the suet feeder began dribbling its contents onto the ground below!
There are other, less direct ways that the gardener can go about feeding birds. The plants we cultivate and allow to grow in the garden ought to be bird friendly might produce seeds for hungry birds, and they might attract insects which birds will eat.
Native wildflowers are excellent because they are the flowers to which our native insects have adapted and with which they have evolved alongside.
Shrubs and trees also make for excellent hunting grounds, where Wren might flit into looking for insects and spiders to eat. And, it makes for great cover, should the smaller birds that feeders attract have to evade a predator – a Sparrowhawk has been a regular visitor here!
Please, don't vilify those birds and other animals which predate these smaller birds. They are only doing what they have always done. They cannot possibly be responsible for the dramatic declines in the last five or eight decades. None of them have developed extraordinarily more efficient hunting methods in that time.
We might do better putting back some of the things we have removed from the landscape – hedgerows, shrubbery, wildflower meadows – before vilifying wildlife.
Health
Once a week, I clean the feeders and the bath – this is vital to providing a healthy space for birds in the garden.
Just as we humans are more susceptible to catching viruses and other ailments in spaces where we come together most often, the same is true of birds. This means that unclean feeders are a hotspot for diseases to be passed between birds.
Parasitic viruses, such as trichomonosis, can be passed from one bird to another through saliva. Faeces too, of course, should be cleaned for the same reasons.
In nature, when birds feed on fruit from trees, for example, that source of food will need time to replenish. And so, it will be some time before a number of birds visit that exact same spot again after other birds have fed there. However, birdfeeders, which are frequently refilled, will attract birds to the same spots over and over again. This increases the chances of cross infection between birds, and is good reason for keeping feeders clean.
I use a bucket, hot water, soap, and a sponge. Some feeders are easier to clean than others, it is true, but there are feeders on the market now which are designed to be easy to clean, precisely because it is acknowledged how important clean feeders are to the health of garden birds. However, with pipe cleaners, toothbrushes, nail files, or whatever tool you can get your hands on, you can get into those hard to reach places a little more easily.
As a little tip, the RSPB sells a birdfeeder cleaning kit, and other hygiene products, in their online shop – here.
And so, coffee mug cleaned – feeders and birdbath too – I can sit a while and watch. Bees and butterflies visit the budleia. Sparrows are holed up in the Philadelphus, sometimes flitting to the hawthorn or the budleia. A wren has visited before, and also took a liking to the budleia. Some don't like it, but wild visitors seem to love it.
The garden hums and buzzes and chirps with life. Allowed a little space, life comes. And it makes for a much more pleasant scene than a dull, manicured patch of lawn.
Thank you for reading.
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