TIME TO HELP OUR WILDLIFE

With the prospect of some proper winter weather on the horizon, it’s time to encourage everyone to spare a thought for our wildlife.

It may be the festive time of the year when people get excited about decorations, presents and food, but for wildlife it’s a time when the only thing they have on their mind is survival.

In milder conditions natural food is normally available for all, but during the harsh, cold, frosty and snowy weather, a battle commences between getting enough food to survive the night and not.

A simple peanut or seed feeder filled with the relevant food stuff can provide many of the birds we see around the garden in the spring and summer, with enough to help survive during the freezing conditions.

The larger birds can then feed on scraps that fall from the feeders, while it also provides birds of prey with the opportunity to keep up the natural balance of life. For smaller birds the less distance they travel between feeds helps to them to keep up energy levels to see them through the long and cold nights.

If just half of our houses had one feeder then the distance little birds would travel would become much less and increase survival chances.

I have three of four feeders in my garden, which seem to mainly attract tree sparrows, robins, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks and house sparrows.

In colder conditions chaffinches, long tailed tits, greenfinches, goldfinches and wrens are also attracted to them.

With the jays now becoming common in and around my garden, they’ve joined the magpies and the odd carrion crow in feasting on the offerings I provide. I don’t encourage the bigger birds, but as my garden is surrounding by countryside, it’s inevitable.

There are also plenty of voles and field mice about, although I’ve only ever seen one around my garden.

A buzzard once landed in the garden and there have also been visits by great spotted woodpeckers, but I’ve not seen one of those for a while. I wonder if the dead trees in a nearby field being cut down have made them move elsewhere.

So with winter soon to replace this ‘warmer’ weekend, spare a though and a few peanuts or seeds for those animals you watch in the warmer months around your house and garden.