Feeding birds in the garden is a popular activity – over half of adults in the UK feed birds in their garden. That’s a lot of extra help for the birds!
Providing birds with supplementary food will bring them closer for you to marvel at their fascinating behaviour and wonderful colours. It will also reward them for sharing their lives with you. Feeding birds is also an ideal way to enthuse children about wildlife.
Supplementary feeding can’t provide all the natural proteins and vitamins that adult and young birds need, so it’s important to create and manage your garden to provide a source of natural foods as well, through well-managed lawns, shrub and flowerbeds.
If you provide both natural and supplementary food, your garden will be visited year-round by a host of different birds. You can take part in our Homes for Wildlife scheme and we’ll give you all the advice you need, especially tailored to your garden, to make your garden into a wildlife haven.
It is important to feed your garden birds responsibly and safely. By following a few simple guidelines, you can play a valuable role in helping your local birds overcome periods of natural food shortage, survive periods of severe winter weather and come into good breeding condition in the spring.
Have a look for those guidelines here !.
- British birds dying from lead shot (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
- Mistle thrush numbers in decline (guardian.co.uk)
- RSPB launch Big Garden Birdwatch and urge Scots to record their garden visitors (dailyrecord.co.uk)