Keeping the birds fed, naturally, in winter

THE amazing bounty of last year’s apple harvest in my tiny orchard is still being enjoyed – but now it is the birds that are tucking in. We have some cider to look forward to (the jury is still out on the quality) while apples picked, peeled and put into the freezer are keeping us in pies and crumbles, but the fresh fruit has gone.

I am also interested to see if other visitors to the garden are making any use of the fruit. A few sacks that failed to make it to the cider press have been standing alongside the shed for several weeks and a few days ago I filled the wheelbarrow and took them down to the very bottom of the garden where I am pretty sure we have a badger visiting from time to time as well as a fox or two.

I know we have a badger because he (or she) once dug up a bees’ nest and scoffed the larvae and, I presume, the honey. On that basis, I am hoping that apples might be to his taste too. If so, there is plenty of fruit to go at and now it has been spread around under a hedge far enough away from the house, I am hoping to see evidence of it being eaten.

We have a camera trap which I am hoping to set up to see if we can actually get pictures of whatever mammals might be munching on the apples, many of which are still in pretty good condition, if a little soft and bruised in places.

As to bird life; at least ten blackbirds – males and females – fly off making that distinctive alarm call when I head up to the shed. They are slowly but surely hollowing out the fruit, leaving little apple skin ‘cups’ behind and then moving on to the next one.

And as the weather has got colder other species from the thrush family, including what I am pretty sure are fieldfares and redwings, are also dropping in for a feed. They are even more nervous than the blackbirds and disappear at the first sign of movement in the garden. I also think they probably prefer berries still on the bushes to fallen apples, but there are fewer berries left now.

We also have a fair bit of ivy growing on the hedgerow elm trees at the very bottom of the garden and while ivy is viewed as a nuisance in many cases, it does provide an important food source as the winter progresses, with the berries eaten by woodpigeons when much of the rest of their natural food has been eaten.

This year, with less winter rape in the fields – a staple of the woodpigeon diet in winter – they may well need to fill up on ivy berries. In my garden they also made very short work of the acorns. A pigeon can consume a surprisingly large number of acorns, as anyone who has ever opened up the crop of a shot bird can testify.