Feeding the Birds in February

We woke up to a white garden Sunday morning

You may think there isn't much to be done in the garden at the moment with snow laying on frozen ground and temperatures close to zero or even below it.

One thing that is important right now is to feed the birds and to make sure they have a supply of clean, unfrozen water.

I've been a bit slow doing that this year, but I made the effort to top up my bird feeders Saturday night and Sunday morning to make sure the local birds had plenty of food to keep them warm.

We have a sumach tree that is great for hanging bird feeders on

I also have a bird table

and a pole with several more feeders, otherwise known as a feeding station

 

You may have noticed that some of them are enclosed in a cage.  This is to stop the squirrels eating the bird food before the birds have had half a chance. 

The birds are hungry at this time of year and lots of the food I put out on Sunday has gone, so it's time to top it up to help the birds stay warm.  Suet balls or suet bird table concoctions, seed mixes with plenty of high-energy sunflower seeds, peanuts while there are no baby birds around unless the peanuts are in a mesh feeder so only small pieces can be taken - all of these are good things to feed a wide range of birds.  If you want to attract finches, then niger seed is what to put out in a special feeder with plastic walls and narrow slits. If you don't get any finches the sparrows will enjoy them as a treat.

We keep our bird feeders at the other end of the garden from the chickens, to try to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.

The water in our bird bath has frozen

so I put out some water in a special container, because I didn't want to take the kettle to the top of the garden.

After I'd topped up the bird table a couple of robins flew down quickly, not trusting me, and flew straight away again, but this one came back and waited in the ivy for the right moment.

I could hear a lot of birds in and around our garden, but they are very timid. A blue tit flew on and off the table before I could take a photo and the sparrows were peeking out of the hedge and going back in again.