Bring in the birds!

Birds are a barometer of the health of your garden – and the best pest control. Here’s how to attract them, says Monty Don

At this time of year I get as much pleasure from watching and listening to the birds in my garden as I do from the plants that grow in it. But it is not rarity or any merit in counting the different species that makes birds such an important part of our gardening experience. They are simply good companions.

In winter, I am inevitably accompanied by a robin, all head-cocked aggression, or more timidly by a wren, flitting like a mouse along the bottom of the hedges. These are not birds that will bring the twitchers driving through the night, yet how many other wild animals do we get to observe so closely?

We share our garden with two kinds of birds. The first are those that dip in and out of the sky above the garden. Some live with us all year; some, like swallows, are a measure of a season; and others, like the peregrine falcon, grace us with a rare visit.

The dawn chorus – which starts before 5am at this time of year – is music to my ears, and the less heralded dusk chorus is also one of the joys of a bird-filled garden.

Because we live next to a river and water meadows, we have ducks, geese, curlews and herons passing in the sky above the garden. I have come across a heron wading through knee-high floodwater in our orchard before. We have ravens, crows, rooks and magpies. Sparrowhawks are more common here than kestrels, and buzzards are much more common than both. Hobbies (a type of falcon) are now regular summer visitors. Male and female tawny owls too-whit to each other in the night, and flocks of redwings and fieldfares appear during the winter.

Any garden abundantly planted with shrubs, hedges and trees is full of food and cover for birds. There are seeds, fruit, berries and leaves plus unknowable numbers of insects, caterpillars and creepy-crawlies. It provides the perfect home for songbirds and small woodland birds of almost every type. These – finches, tits, flycatchers, blackbirds, thrushes, robins, wrens, sparrows and starlings – are the soundtrack of the garden.

A street or housing estate with mature gardens is ideal for many birds. It’s true that pigeons eat fruit and vegetables, blackbirds love raspberries and strawberries and finches nip the buds of spring-flowering plants, but the good they do far outweighs any prob- lems they create. A bird-filled garden is the best pest control you can have.

There are a few things you can do to encourage birds and also things to avoid lest they discourage or harm them. Birds must have permanent cover, and nothing is better than woody plants. A great deal of birdlife will be added to a small garden by simply planting deciduous hedging, along with various

deciduous and evergreen shrubs. If you have room for a small tree or two then even better. This will provide food, nesting places, singing posts and protection from weather and predators.

Talking of predators, we should also welcome birds that feed on our treasured songbirds. They are a sign of a healthy population of prey as well as predators. Sparrowhawks dash in low, turning at right angles in mid-air as they feed on small birds. Hobbies, the most graceful of falcons, take my beloved swallows in mid-flight. Cuckoos will turf eggs and youngsters out to make room for their own eggs. Nature is cruel but to interfere will only result in less wildlife and an unnatural imbalance.

A good balance depends on a food chain. Long grass will encourage insects, which will in turn provide vital food for many birds. Allow some leaves to lie over winter, as birds will find food beneath them. Make a bird bath set into grass – an inch or two is deep enough. Birds need to wash their feathers, and the water is also a source for drinking.

The number of birds in a garden is an excellent measure of its well-being. If a garden can attract and support birdlife, it is also rich in the insects and seeds they need to eat.

Birds are a barometer of everything we do right in our gardens – a healthy bird population is always a sign of a healthy garden.