Bright Ideas for Dark Days

When I wrote about this new series I hadn't meant to wait so long before posting my first one but with computer problems last week holding it up, I apologise for the delay. For the first in this series I want to talk about one of my favourite pastimes - feeding the garden birds. In these dark days of winter, birdwatching can be very rewarding if you just provide your visitors with a little nourishment.

Country Homes and Interiors magazine, in the February issue, provided some great ways of feeding your feathered garden friends in some pretty ways featured below. I especially like the idea of the fat balls on a stick as the birds seem to love it if I leave the canes in my flower beds so maybe I just need to start adding these and stop trying to be so tidy!

Using money given to us by my gran this Christmas we recently bought a new feeder (the black metal one below) and moved our bird table to the front of the house to attract more birds this Winter.

The gold finches especially love the new feeder.

I particularly love our window feeder in the office which attracts blue tits, robins, chaffinches and the occasional black bird, which just about squeezes in.

I saw this idea of using flower pots in the January issue of Country Living and decided to have a go making one myself.

I added layers of suet fat with the peanuts and dried meal worms in between each time, tied it with wire and then hung it in a cherry tree near the usual feeders. It seems to have been popular with the robins and starlings so far.

After Christmas there was a special catch-up programme from one of my favourite nature series of the previous year - Halycon River Diaries. The series had followed one families adventures living next to the river throughout the year and this catch up programme was just as brilliant. In the episode they collected berries in the Autumn and then froze them, to bring them out in the winter to make fat cakes for the birds when the weather turned bitterly cold.

Sarah-Jane recently wrote about the brilliant bird-song radio station where you can listen to the dawn chorus. I tried this last week whilst working and it was really relaxing and had a great calming effect - you can try it here.

In our garden there is one non feathered creature which needs regular feeding too this Winter. This handsome fellow has decided he didn't want to hibernate this year but eat chicken cat food everyday instead. If he were looking poorly I would think about contacting a rescue centre but he runs around our garden like it is Spring so I am not so worried.

So on a dark winters day (like it is here today) nothing brightens my spirits like sitting for just a minute or two to watch the beautiful little birds flit around the feeders. Or on a cold snow covered day I like nothing more than spotting a bright little robin hopping around in the snow. How about you, what wildlife do you have in your garden? Are you a bit of a bird watcher yourself? Or if you have a special recipe for bird food please do tell...