It's the perfect time to put up a new nest box or refurbish an existing one.

Pictured above: Minnesota Nest Box 32mm with Wooden Roof

Winter begins to wane, daylight starts to stretch and birds start to sing. Although it seems early, you will notice more activity in your gardens as many of your feathered friends turn their attention to claiming their territory, checking out new potential nesting sites and building energy reserves for the breeding season ahead. As bird numbers suffer a general decline (due in part to a scarcity of natural nesting sites), a successful mating season is critical to lay the foundations for success of the next generation. Species such as tits, sparrows, wrens and robins often begin preparing for breeding well before spring arrives, and they are gearing up! Having clean, repaired nest boxes in sheltered positions in your garden will help the house-hunting process and will ease their transition to the breeding season.

We are celebrating National Nest Box Week (14th – 21st February) with some fantastic nest box offers. You can save up to 20% on selected nest boxes plus we will put in a FREE 30g bag of nesting wool with each nest box purchased!*

See What's on Offer >>

*Nest box offers available until 21st February or while stocks last. We will automatically add a free bag of nesting wool with each nest box ordered.

A Cosy Home For Jenny Wren

SAVE 20%

This Schwegler spherical wren house provides excellent protection from predators. Hang the nest box in low-level undergrowth in a shady place.

Save 20% Here >>

A Stylish New Home for Woody Woodpecker

SAVE 20%

This woodpecker nest box is handmade in solid, sustainably-sourced cedar with a 55mm entrance hole. Install it high up on a mature tree in a quiet location and wait for the new family!

Save 20% Here >>

SEE ALSO: Where to Put a Nest Box

Premium Seed of the Month

High Energy Blend™

Order our High Energy Blend™ before the end of February to save 10% on the normal price!

Here's what our customers have said about this seed mix:

"This is an excellent blend and has been attracting many garden birds this spring including sparrows, tits, robins, bullfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches and woodpecker. No mess because anything discarded by birds at the feeders gets picked up by others on the ground." – Kay

"It's a beautiful quality feed and the birds are absolutely loving it. Highly recommended." – Phillipa

"I am thrilled that your bird seed has brought so many wild birds to my garden. Absolutely recommend and also your bird feeder with rain protection." – Eve

Small birds have big energy needs, and there's no feed more packed with energy than our High Energy Blend™. With a free-flowing formulation and a 10% saving in February, it's the perfect choice for this cold, wet time of year.

Buy Now from Just £8.95 >>

Snack Smart!

Consider adding some high-energy suet to your bird feeding station at this time of year. It's delicious and high in calories – your birds will thank you!

SAVE 10% ON SELECTED SUET PRODUCTS! Just enter the code SNACKSMART10 at the checkout to claim your discount. Offer available until 21st February or while stocks last.

Honest 2 Nature Suet Cakes

High quality suet cakes with plastic-free and fully recyclable packaging. A great ECO choice!

Find Them Here >>

Peckaballs with Insect

Highly nutritious 'smaller' fat balls. High in calories with great texture and taste, and very versatile!

Find Them Here >>

Peckish Extra Goodness Nuggets

Perfect for small beaks and available in 2 different pack sizes.

Find Them Here >>

Well! I don't know about you, but I am a bit fed up with this incessant rain and I am really looking forward to spring and all the wonderful things that it brings.

Enjoy your birds!

With very best wishes,
Lesley

P.S. Don't forget checkout code SNACKSMART10 to make smart savings.

If you’ve been searching for a high-quality bird feed that you can put out for your feathered friends, you may have come across Peckish Bird Food, a very popular UK brand. But how do their products compare to ours?

In this blog post, we’ll outline some key differences between the home-grown seed mixes we sell here Really Wild Bird Food and the products available from Peckish to help you pick the best value, most sustainable and highest quality bird food for your garden birds!

Quick Comparison

• Here at Really Wild Bird Food, we grow most of the ingredients for our bird seed mixes ourselves – and we do our best to source the rest from nearby locations. We’re transparent about where we get our ingredients from, whereas Peckish are less direct about their sources.
  
  
• Really Wild Bird Food seed mixes generally contain less low-nutrition filler (e.g. wheat) than Peckish Bird Food mixes.
  
  
• Peckish Bird Food tends to be cheaper, although this depends on who you buy it from – you can’t order directly from Peckish, so you have to find a stockist who’s offering a good price. Really Wild Bird Food products can be ordered directly from reallywildbirdfood.co.uk, and we offer free delivery on all bird food orders (plus great savings when you buy in bulk).

Ingredient Sourcing

While Peckish advertise most of their seed mixes and straight seeds as ‘sustainably sourced’, they are not particularly transparent about where they actually get their ingredients from. For their Natural Balance range, they highlight that the ingredients are 100% UK and Irish sourced – the fact they have only highlighted this here suggests that their other products contain at least some ingredients from elsewhere.

At Really Wild Bird Food, we grow the vast majority of our ingredients right here on our farm in Hampshire. Some of our seed mixes (notably EnviroMix) even have 100% of their ingredients grown by us, meaning that by the time the seed is ready to be sent to your door, it has travelled a grand total of zero miles!

For the bird seed ingredients that we can’t grow ourselves, we do sometimes source from overseas. However, we keep our carbon footprint low by sourcing our ingredients from European locations like Bulgaria and the South of France. We also try hard to be transparent about where our products come from so that each customer can make an informed purchasing decision.

Bird Food Quality

Peckish Bird Food’s standard mixes tend to contain bulking agents like wheat, which may fill up larger birds like pigeons but will probably just be ignored by smaller garden birds. This can lead to unsanitary feeding areas with excess food waste, spoiled seed and pests! At Really Wild Bird Food, we use fewer fillers in our seed mixes which can help to attract a broader range of small birds and reduce mess.

In addition to this, while Peckish feeds aim for balanced nutrition, they don’t necessarily match the calorie density of other premium options offered by Really Wild Bird Food. So, if you’re looking for bird food options that will keep your feathered friends warm, healthy and full of energy, premium seed mixes from Really Wild Bird Food are probably your best bet!

Furthermore, if you’re wondering whether Really Wild Bird Food or Peckish give you the best value for money, we will have to side with ourselves due to the ability to buy in bulk, our high-quality ingredients, minimal filler and free delivery offer with ANY orders that include bird seed.

Choose Really Wild Bird Food!

If you have any questions about our bird food ingredients, quality or anything else you may have seen in this blog, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us and a member of our team will be happy to help!

Shop Bird Food   Ask Us a Question

Have you seen the new Peckish TV advert yet? It’s all about using bird food to colour in your garden with vibrant winged wildlife!

Birds need a little extra help in winter to stay energised, so now is the perfect time to start feeding the birds. This is an easy and fun activity that can bring more colour to your garden and your neighbourhood in general.

The new Peckish campaign encourages viewers to colour in their gardens by feeding the birds. However, it can be tricky to know where to start. We’re a distributor with years of experience helping feed wildlife, so we’re happy to help – here’s everything you need to colour in your garden this year!

How to colour in your garden

1) Choose a bird feeder

We sell a variety of Peckish bird feeders that can add a bit of colour to your garden. You’ll even get free delivery on your bird feeder if you also buy one of our nutritious home-grown seed mixes.

Here’s a tip: some birds are picky about how they feed. Birds like robins and chaffinches are ground feeders, which means they prefer to peck from a flat surface. The Peckish Everyday Bird Table features a roof (which provides shelter for birds while they eat) and is very easy to assemble. Some ground-feeding birds may prefer a table that is closer to the ground, but many will happily eat from an elevated table. Plus, the classic wooden table will make a lovely addition to your garden!

If you don’t have space for a freestanding bird table, you can still attract plenty of colourful birds with a hanging feeder, like the Peckish All Weather Large Seed Feeder. It is ideal for rainy UK winters and easy to fill with delicious bird seed.

Peckish also offer a couple of more specialised feeders, like their sunflower heart and suet ball feeders. If you want to attract lots of different birds, your best option is to use a few different types of bird feeder.

With so many wonderful options, your garden will be more colourful before you know it!

2) Choose some bird food

You can’t colour in your garden without bird food. Providing nutritious and healthy seeds is the quickest way to draw in a crowd of new feathered friends. At Really Wild Bird Food, we offer a huge range of seed mixes, from our eco-friendly EnviroMix to our Ground Blend, which is specifically formulated for ground-feeding birds!

If you’re a little overwhelmed by all the choice, you can’t go wrong with our best-selling Tidy Garden Mix. Unlike some mixes, which may leave a mess of shells or cause weeds to grow around your feeding area, this mix only includes ingredients that won’t sprout. It’s foolproof and beloved by a wide variety of garden birds.

Another tip: birds don’t just eat seeds! In nature, many birds eat insects. You can put out live mealworms for your birds, but we know this can be a bit daunting if you are just starting out so we also offer dried mealworms that don’t wriggle around.

Suet – available in the form of fat balls or suet pellets – is another popular treat for birds. It’s full of fat, which healthy birds need to stay warm (especially at this time of year). Our Seed and Suet Combo mix offers birds a balanced, high-energy diet.

3) Take care of your local birds

Setting up a feeder and filling it with bird food is a really good start, but there are a few more small steps you can take to care for your new avian visitors. You should provide water for drinking and bathing, clean your bird feeders regularly, and offer plenty of places for birds to rest or hide. Nesting boxes give birds shelter from predators and bad weather, and many of them have fun designs that can improve the look of your garden.

Feeding the birds is a lovely way to make your garden more colourful, but by taking these extra steps, you can be sure that you are doing your best to properly care for the wildlife around you. Preserving your local bird species by providing food, water and shelter can be incredibly rewarding.

Ready to colour in your garden?

You can colour in your garden by following the instructions above! We hope you enjoy seeing new, beautiful birds flock to your filled-up feeders. And remember: we offer FREE DELIVERY if your order includes one of our seed mixes!

Shop Bird Food

Read these guides for even more useful information on feeding the birds:

• Tips For Feeding Garden Birds
• How (and How Often) to Clean and Disinfect Bird Feeders
• Top 10 Bird Feeding Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

You may have been told before to brush your hair outside, it saves you time on cleaning up the fallen strands and gives your local birds something to build their nests with. However, this is a misconception, leaving human hair out for birds is actually not safe and should be discouraged – we’ll explain why in this blog!

Don't miss out on our 'fang-tastic' Halloween savings!

Are you fed up of trying to prise ghoulish mouldy food from the bottom of your bird feeders?

Then worry no more! We have a range of BIG EASY™ seed feeders that are super-easy to clean.

• These feeders will satisfy king-sized appetites
• They look great
• They hold a large volume of seed so you won't need to fill up so often
• They are very easy to dismantle and clean
• And they come with a lifetime guarantee against damage

And as a Halloween treat, you can save up to £7* depending on which size you order.

Big Easy™ seed feeders with two ports (left), four ports (centre) and six ports (right).

Buy Now & Save!

*Save £3 on the two-port feeder, £4 on the four-port feeder or £7 on the six-port feeder. Offer ends at midnight on 3rd November (or while stocks last).

20% OFF DRIED MEALWORMS!

We are offering a 20% discount on dried mealworms as a Halloween treat for your garden birds!

Ground-feeding birds like robins and blackbirds love mealworms, and if the live ones are just too creepy for you, these crunchy beasties without the wriggle are the next best thing.

Just enter the code CRUNCHY20 at checkout to save 20% on your dried mealworms.

Buy Dried Mealworms

Bird Feeder Cleaning Bundle Offer

Was £18.40 – NOW ONLY £10*

Now is a really good time to clean your bird feeders, tables and feeding stations. Making sure everything is pristine before you commence winter feeding will help to protect your garden birds' health.

This bird feeder cleaning bundle includes a 500ml bottle of Ark-Klens ready-to-use spray, a table scraper (which makes cleaning the corners of bird tables much easier!) and two feeder brushes.

Everything you need for an autumn clean, and for a limited time only, this bundle is available for just £10!

Buy Feeder Cleaning Bundle

*Offer ends 3rd November OR while stocks last. Please note that the bird bath shown in the photo is NOT included in this bundle.

Bats become much more in our thoughts around Halloween.

Whilst outside during the darker evenings, maybe with the children during Halloween, why not take the opportunity to do some bat spotting and identifying?

We stock a selection of high-quality bat boxes – now with 10% OFF – that are designed to provide bats with a man-made home when nesting space isn't available. Bats love to nest in narrow, tight spaces with a slightly rough texture so there's plenty of grip. Our bat boxes mimic nesting spots that bats would favour in nature.

Get 10% Off Bat Boxes

We also sell an illustrated 8-page guide to bat identification and a range of wildflower seeds which bats love.

Look out for our Super Saver prices!

If you're buying large quantities of bird seed, be sure to look for our SUPER SAVER prices on large sizes of seed mixes and straight seeds.

Remember: there is no VAT on 15kg sacks, so you can save money by swapping your 8kg for a 15kg. If you want to buy even larger quantities, do give us a call and we can quote you for bulk buys and 20kg sacks.

Buy Bird Seed in Bulk

Don't forget to enter the code CRUNCHY20 at the checkout to save 20% on dried mealworms for your garden birds!

Enjoy your birds (and bats if you have them!).

It is a wonderful, changeable time of the year.

With very best wishes,
Lesley

Our 4kg Pick & Mix Bags are on special offer right now – some great savings to be had!

• Order 3 bags, pay for 2 – SAVE £8
• Order 4 bags, pay for 3 – SAVE £8
• Order 5 bags, pay for 4 – SAVE £8
• Order 6 bags, pay for 5 – SAVE £8

Pick & Mix allows you to order 4kg bags of any of our seed mixes, straight seeds, peanuts or suet pellets. The more bags you order, the more money you save...and this special offer means that, for a limited time, one of your bags is FREE if you order three or more 4kg bags!

So why not try something new for your garden birds today? Simply head over to our Pick & Mix page, click each item you wish to buy, and once you have made your selections, click the 'Add to Basket' button.

Choose Your Bags >>

OCTOBER SEED OF THE MONTH

Native Finch Mix

SAVE 15% (Offer Ends 31st October)

Our Native Finch Mix contains 12 different seeds, and this wide variety is guaranteed to attract not just finches but an assortment of small birds to your garden.

This mix is ideal for filling up seed feeders, but you can also pop it on your bird table or scatter it on the ground for all the ground-feeding birds to enjoy.

Buy Native Finch Mix >>

Who Is Eating All the Nuts and Acorns?

We are!

Did you know that we sell our own home-made Really Wild Squirrel Food?

This mix is deliciously fresh and loved by squirrels! It comes with FREE DELIVERY, plus you can order it as part of your Pick & Mix order.

Our squirrel food is packed with delicious home-grown ingredients and nutritious seeds, plus high-energy oilseeds and peanuts! What more could a squirrel want?

If you are having trouble with squirrels raiding your bird feeders and stealing your bird food, why not put up a squirrel feeder just for them? Place it in a different part of your garden and encourage them to help themselves to our bespoke squirrel food – a bistro just for them!

Really Wild Squirrel Food is now available in 15kg sacks. So many customers wanted MORE, so we are now offering larger sacks of food for your squirrels. Great value at only £2.19 per kg!

Order Your Squirrel Food

Enjoy your birds (and squirrels!)

Best wishes,
Lesley

P.S. There is a bountiful supply of acorns around this year, and some fairly amazing mushrooms and toadstools are enjoying the season. Just a word of warning: be diligent when walking dogs, since many of them may be poisonous.

Well, that's a wrap!

Harvest 2025 is finally finished! It's a long old season – most farmers tucked their combines away in August having had one of the earliest harvests on record, but we had to sit it out and wait for the spring bird seed crops to ripen. The plain canary seed was cut 5 weeks early due to the very dry weather; unfortunately canary seed doesn't like dry weather, so whilst the quality was excellent (and it came in dry) we only had 60% of our normal yield.

As the days shorten, the number of available hours to combine crops reduces significantly. The heavy morning dews and the damp coming down in early evening means that there is usually only a 4–5 hour daily window to cut crops.

Our red millet was harvested on 22nd September and the white millet on 1st October. Those two crops were the stars for the year, with both the quality and the yields being excellent. It was nice to finish the year with two crops that have done really well. Good news for us and your garden birds!

And now there is a big dash to plant our winter wheat, while the weather is favourable. Agronomists like us to plant autumn crops as late in the year as possible as this helps with disease control and grass weed problems, which ultimately will help us to bring down the cost of production. However, with late planting, there is always the pressure of the weather bearing down. Will it stay fair for the next month or will it be wet and stop us getting on the land? That is always the big question and there is too much at stake to gamble on the former, so the dash is on to get the job done during this window of fine weather.

Shoo fly!

This year has been particularly bad for a pest called the 'turnip sawfly', the larvae of which feeds on newly-planted winter oil seed rape crops. Their numbers can build rapidly, and boy, do they they feed voraciously, sawing out young plants and leaving them as plant skeletons!

The turnip sawfly (left) and plant damage caused by its larvae (right).

Wheat and barley

We are very pleased with our new grain store (erected late last year) and it is helping hugely. We can now hold much more of our own grain on the farm instead of sending it to a central store, which works out extremely expensive. Grain prices are really poor at the moment, with wheat trading at around £165 per tonne. We are hoping that, by holding onto our own grain, we can wait for prices to improve before selling...but with the way things are globally (there is a global over-supply) that may be a pipe dream this year.

We have grown a lot of spring barley this year, all of which achieved excellent malting barley quality, which is great in itself. However, the malting barley market in the UK has collapsed. Much of the UK's malting barley would normally be exported to maltsters in Europe, but this year they have been undercut by the Chinese who have produced large tonnages of cheap (inferior) malted barley for European brewers. So we currently have no home for our barley.

It would be fair to say that, in all the years Richard has been farming, this is one of the toughest to date. But we have to stay positive – and stay farming – because that is what we do and what we are good at!

On a brighter note: your garden birds are still enjoying our produce!

OCTOBER SEED OF THE MONTH

Native Finch Mix

From only £7.60 (SAVE 15%)

Our Native Finch Mix includes millet, oil seed rape, wheat, naked oats, plain canary seed and black sunflower seeds – and to make it even more tasty, we have added niger seed (which goldfinches particularly love), making this the perfect autumn bird food for finches and other small, hedge-loving birds.

Buy Native Finch Mix Here

Special offers

There are some great deals to be had on our Special Offers page right now! Here are just a few of them (offer details correct as of October 2025):

• 15% off floating swan and duck food! Take an autumn stroll down to your nearest river or pond and feed the ducks! Bread isn't good for them, so this is a great alternative.
  
  
• 10% off Apollo two-port seed feeders! Apollo™ seed feeders help to make bird feeding simple. The base, lid and ports are easily removed for cleaning and refilling.
  
  
• 10% off the Vierno Tavern seed feeder! A domed roof and round arches create good visibility of birds' surroundings, helping them to feel secure whilst feeding.
  
  
• Save £7.70 on this hedgehog feeding dish with niblets! Get an adorable 'I Love Hedgehogs' ceramic feeding dish plus a bag of hedgehog niblets for only £9.95!
  
  
• Vetark Citrosan for only £5.50! Natural water sanitiser for your bird bath. Helps to reduce disease transmission.

View Our Special Offers Here

Discover Our Birdie Basics Range Here

Well, that's all from me for now. Enjoy your birds and, as always, thank you for your custom!

Kind regards,
Lesley

Trichomoniasis is a contagious disease caused by the protozoan parasite Trichomas gallinae. The disease affects the gullet and throat, making it difficult for birds to swallow and breathe, often leading to death from starvation and dehydration. Birds that are commonly affected by trichomoniasis include pigeons, doves, house sparrows and finches – in fact, the breeding greenfinch population in the UK declined from 4.3 million to 2.8 million since the emergence of trichomoniasis in 2005.

So, how is trichomoniasis treated in wild birds and are there any ways to prevent it from spreading? This blog will unpack everything you need to know about trichomoniasis in wild birds.