How to support birds through the seasons – gardening jobs for the … – iNews

Birds are the most frequent visitors to our gardens particularly in winter and what is more delightful than the company of a robin while clearing and digging?

Gardeners are used to the effects of season on plants, which use day length and temperature-sensing abilities to time leaf burst, flowering and leaf fall to the expected season. Birds, too, have lives that change with the seasons with precisely timed activities spring dawn choruses, nest-building, egg-laying and migration.

They accomplish this through complex interaction of the retina in their eyes, the pineal gland and the hypothalamus, part of the brain, to release the hormone melatonin. The avian pineal gland in particular measures day length and uses this to keep time, so that cocks crow at dawn, while on an annual scale key activities occur at the right time; hens come into lay as days lengthen and male robins assume their bright red chests prior to breeding in winter, before mating in spring, for example.

Safe nesting sites and winter food are effective ways to help garden birds. Clean, unfrozen water is also important.

As the days begin to draw out, there is still time to add nest boxes. Nest-box entry holes are important in preventing birds such as blue tits being ousted by larger starlings and house sparrows, but both of these formerly common species are considered at risk by the British Trust for Ornithology due to long-term breeding decline, so providing them with nest sites is now equally important.

One factor in breeding decline may be improved houses, with less accessible eaves and smarter garden buildings. Nest boxes can compensate for gentrification. Recommended hole sizes are 25mm for blue tits and coal tits, 28mm for great tits, 32mm for house sparrows and 45mm for starlings.

Open-fronted boxes are favoured by robins and wagtails. Old sheds, especially allotment ones, often accommodate bird nests blackbirds and robins, for example so be ready to work around these if you are lucky enough to have feathered interest.

Blackbirds mostly nest in vegetation and trees, large shrubs and hedges. Aim to prune these after nesting is over in September.

It is a wonder that small birds can keep warm but they achieve this feat by having feathers with soft, downy bases and waterproof tips arranged to overlap like roof tiles to shed water. Below these are fluffy downy feathers which increase as winter approaches.

That characteristic winter fluffing up adds insulating air pockets. Not only are chill and water excluded but also heat generated internally from the birds food is retained. Unlike mammals, birds carry little fat reserves and much of every day is spent searching for food, meaning they benefit from supplementary feeding using special feeders or scattered on the ground or bird tables.

Typical foods include berry cakes (finches), cheese, chopped (wrens), fruit past its best (thrushes and blackbirds), nyger seeds (goldfinches), mealworms (robins) and peanuts (starlings). Alternatively, use song bird mixes.

Unfortunately, birds are sometimes prone to diseases, notably avian flu. Avoid bird concentrations using several feeding stations in rotation, leaving some unused, and cleanse them at intervals. Feed little and often so that stale food does not accumulate. If you see ill birds, suspend feeding for at least two weeks to avoid encouraging infection.

A garden planted with many kinds of plant and style provides a habitat rich in food resources and cover similar to woodland glades or forest margins favoured by many birds.

For seeds, eryngiums, sunflowers and thistle-like cardoons are good choices; berried shrubs include berberis, cotoneaster, pyracantha and Rosa rugosa, while berrying trees include crab apples (consider trying to get mistletoe to colonise these), and sorbus.

Native trees provide food for the insects that can feed birds in addition to berries, not least crataegus (hawthorn) and sorbus (mountain ash and whitebeam).

Hedges will provide berries if not too severely cut every two or three years rather than annually. Hawthorn, hazel, holly and yew make good native hedges. Ivy is not always appreciated, but spare it where possible, as its flowers support bees and berries provide late-winter bird food. Teasels and Devils-bit scabious are attractive seed-bearing wildflowers.

Gardening practices that help birds include growing cover crops or green manures rather than leaving veg plots bare over winter. Mulching with well-rotted compost (fresh compost of manure contains soluble nutrients that can be lost to waste under rainfall, risking pollution) and straw or leaving plant debris as long as possible before clearing enhances foraging opportunities for birds.

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How to support birds through the seasons - gardening jobs for the ... - iNews