Snow - Feeding the birds

[Primrose]

I'm fighting a losing battle this morning in heavy snow trying to clear the bird table and a small patch of ground so that I can put food down for the birds. Even sheltered areas under shrubs have several inches of snow and what I put down is being covered within minutes. Does anybody have any bright ideas for getting them fed? I've just counted 13 blackbirds fluttering around looking desperately hungry.

[garden_serf]

Do you have a large sun umbrella that normally goes over your summer table?
As long as it is not too windy of course.

[Primrose]

I suddenly remembered an old golf umbrella in my car boot. Cleared the snow from under a low evergreen shrub and opened up the golf umbrella over it. The birds were down foraging before I'd got back into the house! It's stopped snowing snow, and although the snow is about 5" deep, I've cleared a small area of grass for them to feed. Think every bird in the area is now in our garden and the gulls are wheeling overhead looking for pickings.If we have any more snow, we'll have to dig out our big garden umbrella from the loft.

[Monika]

Primrose, I usually just tread down the snow with my boots and spread the food on top. If it isn't snowing too hard at the time, the birds' feet pound it down even more! They are certainly making the most of the feeders today! We even had a treecreeper working its way up the trunk of the bird cherry which is nearest to the feeder.

Wow, it's just started blizzarding again!

[Elaine]

Hello fellow bird lovers. I like the brolly idea alot! fortunately the snow waqsn't too deep here in Hull this morning so the patch I cleared on the path stayed clear. Resident Billy blackbird was happily scoffing cheese and currants. I looked out and my elderly moggie was eating the cheese--I bet if I put some in her dish she wouldn't eat it I brought her inside and watched the starlings hoovering up the lot. I replaced it twice more.

[glallotments]

Don't forget that the birds need water too! We keep popping out to the birdbaths to thaw out the water after which the birds flock in!

[oldherbaceous]

Well no one's going to upset me today, i've just seen a Thrush in my garden, with one of those yellowish, white snails in it's beak.

Now that has been a few years since i last saw one in the garden.

[Suechooks]

I've put a wheelbarrow upside down and put food under that for the birds on my allotment. Seems to have kept clear under it.

[Chantal]

I'm feeding the wild birds on chicken food right now. I had a look at the wild bird mix in Wilko's and it was mostly corn, kibbled maize and sunflower seeds which I have by the sackful for the girls. I'm giving them suet as a supplement and they're eating their little heads off.

I've never worried about feeding them before as my neighbours have a big bird table and as, until recently, I was the owner of 6 cats I thought it was like enticing them onto death row. Now Rosie is the only one left and she's retired, I'm more confident they'll survive.

[glallotments]

I had a thrush as well - haven't seen one in the garden for ages - although I don't think it could find a snail under the snow. The area under evergreen shrubs has been a prime feeding site as it is snow free! The thrush was throwing up leaves etc with vigour.

We buy a food called Golden Chorus that the birds, hedgehogs and anything else seems to love. There is some of that, some seed and some fat cake under the small covered area right by our patio window and the birds are coming right up to it for food. The female blackbirds seem a lot more confident to do this than the males though. The females happily tuck in turning their backs on us but the male is very wary. The blue/great tits do a quick smash and grab. The robins and collared doves are also very happy to come right up to the window too.

I shiver though watching the sparrows bathing in icy cold water. They stay in the bath til absolutely sodden and can barely fly off. My husband took a video which is posted on YouTube if anyone is interestedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6aNJnLt7jE Choose watch in high quality for best view.

[Johnboy]

Homemade Bird-food,
Throughout the year I collect all the fat from the roasting pan put into jars and freeze for a time like we are experiencing right now.
I have one of the old tall type squeezy washing-up liquid bottles with the top cut off and another with top and bottom cut off and cut down it's length. This now fits inside the other one making a sleeve.
Take some bread and blitz in then add some dried fruit (Raisins,Currants etc) mix together and then melt some of the fat to make a pudding.
Put this mixture into the squeezy contraption and freeze. By running under lukewarm water the sleeve will come out, put this (wrapped around the pudding) into net bags, collected throughout the year, and unpeel the sleeve leaving the fat-pudding in the net bag. By doing it this way it is far less messy.
Hang the bags out, as you would nuts, and this is exactly what the birds require because it is instant energy which is what they so badly need on these very cold mornings. Here they are on to it in a flash.
JB.

[garden_serf]

Hi JB, Ingenious system!
I make small ones (in the winter) to put out, the mould being any plastic container that I am about to throw away.

I wonder how many people that are into growing veg are vegetarians and do not have a supply of fat for the birds surplus from their own cooking.

[glallotments]

Just made 10 more tubs of fat cake!! We are never as prepared as Johnboy and so buy lard from the supermarket. It is cheap and worth it for the hours of entertainment as well as keeping the birds well provided for!

[Monika]

It's good to get some new tips on bird feeding!
I have made our own fat pots for years by putting bird peanuts through an old Spong mincer and then mixing them with suet. It sets hard quite quickly, but I push the mixture into any container I can hang up. Favourites are fish soup tins (like seafood gumbo, boulliabaisse) with both top and bottom cut out. I like the fish soup tins because they have a white plastic inner coating. They are then hung up by pushing a strong wire through the whole tin from top to bottom whilst the mixture is still slightly soft. Can't use string because the squirrels will just chew through it! Long-tailed tits are particularly fond of this!

[oldherbaceous]

How lovely it was to hear the Blackbirds and Robins singing at 6.15am this morning, just another little thing that brightens ones day.