As the warm days of summer approach, the dietary requirements of the wild birds in your garden are evolving and changing.
While summer brings an abundance of natural food resources, providing bird food is still important, especially as the warmer months are usually nesting, breeding and moulting seasons for birds. In this blog, we will explore the best bird foods to keep our feathered friends happy and healthy and your garden thriving this summer.
Niger seeds (sometimes called nyger or nyjer seeds) are a popular seed among many wild birds. They can be enjoyed on their own as a tasty snack or as part of a yummy bird seed mix.
PICTURED: Ring-Pull™ Niger Feeder
Keep reading to discover more about niger seed, including what birds like to eat it and how best to use it.
Our very popular High Energy Fledgling Mix™ is back for this season!
Spring is upon us - not that you'd know it from the cold, wet and miserable weather! This is the time of year when garden bird numbers soar as fledglings appear en masse.
This is also the most critical time of year to offer quality, easy-to-digest bird food (especially if the weather is inclement and the insect population is low, which is certainly the case right now).
Wild birds come in a variety of shapes and sizes and have a variety of feeding habits, which is why there are so many different types of bird feeder on the market.
When you're trying to choose the best bird feeder for your garden, think carefully about which birds you're hoping to attract. This will inform your purchase - for example, some birds are ground feeders, whereas others prefer to forage in bushes and trees.
(Of course, you can always set up several different feeders in your garden and attract a wide variety of birds!)
If you're not sure what kind of bird feeder to purchase, read on to learn about the different feeder types and which bird species they are most likely to attract.
Here's a little fact that may help you out in a pub quiz one day: every inch of rain that falls produces 8kg of nitrogen per hectare for the soil.
Rain is by far the cheapest source of N fertiliser available to us. That's why most of Britain's dairy farms are on the west coast, where the higher rainfall super-fertilises the grass and keeps the cows well fed. It's also the reason why our farm looks so green at the moment. In the last five months, we have had 33 inches of rain - just a bit less than our normal annual rainfall! Surely it has to stop soon...?
Who doesn't love a bit of stylish storage, and especially when it is for daily use and can sit proudly in a kitchen or utility room? No need to hide it in a cupboard!
This robin is looking a bit fed up, and I totally get it - we all are!
With the weather forecast looking wet, wet, WET for the foreseeable future, it's worth taking a look at our bird feeding practices to ensure we give our feathered friends a fighting chance. Natural food resources are still very scarce, and this inclement weather is testing, so wild birds need all the help they can get.
There are two key factors to consider when hanging a bird feeder in your garden.
