Feeding our garden birds

Contrary to popular belief, not all birds will eat the same food. Keith observes the eating habits of some of his regular guests

With the first frosts already upon us, now is the time to be thinking about feeding our garden birds. Not only does this aid their survival at a time when natural food is scarce but it also provides a great opportunity to see some of our most beautiful species right up close.

I find it most interesting the changes I have witnessed in our garden birds over the years, both in terms of abundance and behaviour. When I first started feeding birds as a boy in the 1970s, my only means of attracting them was a hanging wire-mesh peanut dispenser.

Blue, great and coal tits would descend upon the feeder in droves and greenfinches were common too.

As a youngster with a passion for wildlife it was like being at the heart of a natural paradise and I would spend hours mesmerised by the comings and goings of these birds.

Their interactions were fascinating too – the great tits and the greenfinches being the dominant bullies, forcing the smaller blue and coal tits off the feeder whenever they alighted.

Things are rather different today and I find that most of my garden visitors are not particularly interested in peanuts, preferring instead to feast upon hanging feeders containing sunflower seeds and fat balls.

When it comes to sunflower seeds, if given the choice, my garden birds prefer the hearts rather than shell-on seeds. Shelling the seeds, it would seem, is a tiresome chore that birds would rather avoid.

Alas, greenfinches are now scarce visitors to our garden with their numbers having plummeted due to avian trichomoniasis disease. Ironically, bird feeding may have contributed to the spread of the disease due to greenfinches coming into close contact with each other around garden bird tables.

Greenfinches bring so much colour and vibrancy to any garden, and I was hoping that they would have built up a degree of resistance to the disease by now, but sadly this hasn’t happened as yet.

But there have been new arrivals too. Goldfinches are now frequent visitors to our garden and for the last year or so nuthatches have also been turning up regularly. A recent incomer from England, nuthatches can now be found in many parts of Courier Country.

I enjoy hearing their piercing whistling calls from the wood behind my house, but they are tricky birds to spot and are so well camouflaged as they crawl up and down tree trunks and along branches.

My favourite garden visitor though is undoubtedly the coal tit. They are such charismatic birds and are great hoarders of seeds and nuts, shuttling to and fro from a bird feeder and secreting their bounty in nooks and crannies around the garden for later retrieval.

It is a clever survival strategy that plays an important ecological role too because those seeds that are forgotten about will sprout into life come the spring, having been carefully planted by one of nature’s little gardeners.