Kitchen Garden Forum

In line with the fact that the hungry gap for birds is generally Feb and March, I have been diligently topping up the bird feeders. However, with no sign of any change in the weather I am wondering whether this is a sensible option if they are encouraged to nest and lay eggs, then find that there are no insects for the young.

I feed the birds all the year round, obviously much less in mild weather, but they will nest when they think it is spring rather than how good their food supply is.

I used to think that birds would be able to forecast the weather when they were due to hatch the eggs and time it all to perfection, until my chickens went broody two years running and hatched their eggs in wet, foul and windy weather. So it's either just the stupidity of chickens or birds have no more clue than we do!

Still, better fed than dead!

Motherwoman

I think it's day length rather than temperature which determines birds' breeding cycles. We certainly have nesting blackbirds, song thrushes, robins, dunnocks and long-tailed tits at the moment and all the other tits and the great spotted woodpeckers are moving about in pairs, so their time must be near, too.

I usually stop feeding the birds in mid-April, but will watch the weather this year. There are midges about and also aphids - I have seen them in the midday sunshine, so, no doubt, the insect-feeders must be able to find SOME food. My food offerings include home-made fat blocks (ground peanuts with suet), which are particularly appreciated by all the tits and the woodpeckers. The seed eaters (still lots of siskins and bramblings at the moment) get sunflower hearts and nyjer seeds.

Monika - your comment re daylength being the trigger is what prompted me to post originally.