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Winter is on its way and if you feel the cold, think of our garden birds. Attracting birds to your yard through food and water offers a constant source of pleasure and is a wonderful way to introduce children to wildlife.
And during the colder months, your food supply can save your life.
At this time of year, we all need some incentive to venture outside and what could be better than knowing that we could save the lives of our little garden friends?
In winter, birds find it difficult to find their natural food, such as insects, worms, berries, and seeds.
They need high-energy, high-fat foods during cold weather to maintain body reserves and survive freezing nights.
Children can often be encouraged to help feed the birds as it is so easy to do and offers instant rewards – watch their faces when they look out the window and see a robin eating the food they just left in the bird’s table.
In severe weather, if possible, feed twice a day, in the morning and early in the afternoon.
When it comes to thinking about what to feed them, you can buy bird and peanut cake, which are very good because of their high fat content and canary seed mixes are also rich in oils. But you can also feed kitchen scraps, such as fat and tallow, and children’s tea leftovers, such as soft whole wheat bread, soft grated cheese, boiled potatoes, pastries and nuts, or better yet, get the kids to do their own bird. cake to your own special recipe.
Bird cake recipe
First make a mold out of something suitable, like a coconut shell or an empty yogurt jar or ice cream box. Thread some string through the bottom of the coconut so you can hang it from the bird table or tree and thread some wire through the pot or plastic container.
Ingredients:
500g fat (tallow is better)
500 g of mixed birdseed plus up to 750 g of leftovers such as cake and cookie crumbs, grated cheese, chopped peanuts, sultana raisins, whole wheat bread, etc.
Method:
1. Gently melt fat in large saucepan; do not overheat it and make sure young children are always carefully supervised.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the fat.
3. Pour the mixture into the mold and let it cool and set.
4. When the cake is done, hang the coconut mold upside down in the garden. The cake made in a yogurt pot can be carefully scooped out with a knife and hung from the wire or simply placed on your bird’s table.
Then just watch the birds enjoy their feast! Birds that will love this cake include robins, nuthatches, sparrows, finches, big tits, and blue tit, and you might even be lucky enough to catch an older spotted woodpecker pecking too. Remember that a constant supply of clean water is just as important as food, so break the ice in the bird bath with some warm water from the kettle.
Other ways to care for your birds this coming winter include setting up nest boxes and creating a natural organic garden with native plants, shelter, and places to roost.
Birds love messy gardens, so leave dead heads on the plants so the birds can collect the seeds and leave some of the fall leaves for the birds to scratch, looking for insects and insects.