Bird Pudding - Cooking for birds!
One of the easiest and best ways you can help wildlife is to feed birds, either in your garden or from window feeders if you live in a flat or apartment.
When
it comes to deciding what food to put out you have two main sources of food
to choose from. Firstly there is a wide range of commercial wild bird food
available, everything from peanuts to special softbill food and even live
food such as mealworms. The second type of food, and probably the most
common, is kitchen scraps such as old bread crusts and unwanted fruit.
1.
BIRD PUDDING
In addition to putting out general kitchen scraps such as bread one of the best things you can do to attract birds to your garden and to help them through the winter is to put out energy packed fat based foods. You can buy a wide range of ‘fat balls’ and ‘bird bells’ from the garden centre or pet shop but it is easy and enjoyable to make your own. The basic idea is to provide the birds with a variety of foods, encased in a layer of fat to provide extra calories.
Making
a bird cake or bird pudding mixture is very easy and will help you to
attract birds. Peanuts and seeds such as sunflower seeds, kitchen scraps
such as bits of bacon rind or hard cheese can all be used. Traditionally
people have used suet or lard to make bird-cake, but you could also mix in
soft sunflower margarine. If using lard or a hard vegetable based suet, you
will need to melt it, but be careful not to put too much in the pan and keep
a watchful eye over it to avoid any risk of fire.
Another
interesting alternative is to create a log feeder by drilling a number of
shallow holes, about the width of a 10p piece in a length of old log. This
can be hung in a tree and birds including woodpeckers will be attracted in
to feed.
The
fat mixture can also be smeared on the bark of trees as a treat for long
tailed tits.
2.
ROBIN’S RELISH
Another
simple ‘dish’ you can make for birds is a special soft food which will
appeal to species such as robins, wrens, blackbirds and others which usually
eat insects and don’t readily take to eating seeds and nuts.
To
make ‘Robin’s Relish’ you will need a food processor or mincer, some
peanuts, some bread and any mixture of ingredients such as old cake and
biscuits.
Simply
place all the ingredients into the blender and ‘whizz’ together to make
a moist crumble mixture. This can then be placed in a tubular plastic
feeder, on the bird table or scattered on the ground.
General
Information
In
addition to putting out food and water for birds, one of the best ways to
help boost local bird populations is to put up a number of nest boxes in you
garden.
If you would like more information on nest boxes, feeding birds, or other wildlife information, please contact us on 0115-958-8242.
Click here, if you wish to print out this fact sheet as a Word Document.