I moved into my rented house last May, and of course I set about feeding the birds in my new garden straight away. I established some of the familiar faces of the garden bird world within a few months, but it was only at the beginning of this year that I started to see Starlings.  More...

'Your Bird Stories' vary greatly from garden to garden, and we love to help customers with their individual ornithological issues.

Emma Kenworthy of Fishguard had an issue with starlings. She has nothing against them personally (in fact they are in sharp decline along with many other species), it's just that they have a tendency to scare off the little birds from hanging feeders. So she sent us a great pic showing off her new ground feeder sanctuary, all arranged ready for the smaller birds to discover. The mesh sides are adjustable from 33mm to 58mm width, allowing you to choose which birds are excluded, or not.

More...

We love hearing our customers' tales of their garden birds when they phone or email to place an order.

Susan Thompson phoned recently, and we were pleased to hear that she had seen a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers in her garden, one of them possibly a juvenile. She was concerned that they seemed hungry but couldn't access the peanuts in her squirrel-proof peanut feeder, however, they had been feasting heartily on a suet-filled coconut and hadn't yet discovered the multiple suet block holder on the other side of the garden.

Susan sent us this snap of the woodpecker on the coconut feeder, with apologies for the condensation on the window making the image slightly unclear. Of course, if she had opened the window or stepped outside to take a photo then the subject would have flown off instantly. Bird photography is notoriously difficult! She is hoping to have better luck in the summer when she can sit outside quietly in a corner. 

More...

NEWS FROM THE FARM

As I write this, there have been snow flurries here in the south and the temperature has certainly dropped by a few degrees.

October was a lovely month for us; dry and warm, which meant our cover crops grew really well. Our buckwheat flowered for a long time providing some very welcome late nectar for the bees. However buckwheat doesn't like cold weather and it has started to fall over now. The linseed was somewhat slower to flower so didn't provide much late-season help for the bees.

This was Richard's first home produced cover crop and he is very pleased with the mix ratios of the various plants that he put together. This particular cover crop contained the following: oats, phacelia, linseed, buckwheat and sunflowers. Each element with a specific function, contributing to improved soil quality and stability. More...

Why I’m Buying a Window Feeder

Living in a small second-floor flat with my two children, there is hardly room to swing a cat, let alone have pets... So when I stumbled upon RWBF's range of window feeders I had a lightbulb moment - why not feed the wild birds and create a bit of excitement for the kids at the same time? More...

Robins are inquisitive and trusting birds and with a little TLC, some perseverance and some yummy tempting food ( especially of the wriggling variety! ) you can encourage them to feed from your hand, which is always thrilling when it happens. We shouldn't lose sight of how much we can do to help our garden birds, particularly by feeding them bird food of the highest quality, and please don't worry - it is impossible to help too much!

Food that we put out will always be a supplement to natural supplies. If nature offers great bounty - the birds will be there! You can see this is true at this time of year when most garden birds desert us in favour of hedgerows full of fruit, berries, seeds and nuts. More...