Thomas Pemberton
Start by watching, not spending
Before you buy a single feeder or nest box, give yourself a fortnight of doing nothing but looking. Sit out with a mug of tea at different times of day and note who turns up: the robin that shadows you along the border, blue tits working the fence line, dunnocks shuffling about under the shrubs, a blackbird turning over the same patch of leaf litter every morning. A notebook and a pencil are the only equipment required, and this is where nature journaling quietly earns its keep. Record the date, the weather, the species and what it was doing. Within a few weeks you will know which corners of your outdoor space are already pulling their weight and which are dead ground, and every decision you make afterwards becomes sharper for it.
Let your flowers run to seed
One of the most generous things you can do costs absolutely nothing: stop deadheading in late summer. Seed heads left standing on teasels, globe thistles, lavender, sedum, honesty and sunflowers will draw in goldfinches, greenfinches and siskins right through the lean months. Faded blooms are not untidiness, they are a larder.
Resist the urge to cut everything down in October. Leave stems and seed heads upright over winter, then cut back in late February or early March once the worst of the weather has passed. If you can bear it, leave the stems in bundles on the ground for a week or two so anything sheltering inside can escape. Hollow stems, particularly from plants such as teasel and hogweed, are prized by overwintering insects, and those insects are next spring's bird food.
- Teasel and sunflower for finches
- Lavender and sedum for late nectar, then seed
- Honesty and poppies for self-seeding drifts
- Any thistle left to flower for goldfinches
Plant for berries, not just for looks
Native shrubs feed birds twice over: insects on the leaves in summer, fruit in autumn and winter. Hawthorn, rowan, holly, guelder rose, blackthorn, spindle and wild cherry all earn their space. Holly is worth a moment's thought, since only female plants carry berries and they need a male nearby to set fruit, so plant them in pairs if you have room. Ivy is often dismissed as a nuisance, but its late berries are one of the most valuable winter foods going, and its dense growth makes superb cover for nesting and roosting.
Bare-root shrubs planted between November and March are far cheaper than potted ones and establish better. Even a balcony or a small courtyard can host a rowan or a compact holly in a decent-sized pot, and a climbing honeysuckle up a wall will feed moths and birds alike.
A little mess is a lifeline
Perfectly manicured gardens are hungry places. If you can find one corner to leave alone, you will be astonished what moves in. A pile of logs, a heap of leaves and a quietly rotting compost bin create the damp, insect-rich habitat that song thrushes, wrens and dunnocks depend on. A song thrush needs a good anvil stone to smash snails against, and a scruffy border gives it the snails in the first place.
- Leave leaf litter under hedges and shrubs rather than clearing it
- Stack prunings and logs in a shaded corner
- Let a patch of lawn grow long over summer, then leave it standing
- Allow a few nettles and seed weeds to flower in an out-of-the-way spot
None of this looks neglected if you frame it deliberately. A small sign, or simply telling visitors it is a wildlife corner, turns scruff into intent.
Water, the cheapest gift of all
Birds need to drink and bathe all year round, and a shallow dish will do. An old washing-up bowl, a dustbin lid or a plant saucer set into the ground works perfectly. Keep it shallow, no more than a few centimetres deep, and add a couple of stones or a sloping piece of slate so anything that falls in can climb out. Refresh it every few days, more often in hot spells, and site it within a metre or two of a shrub or hedge so birds can dash for cover. In hard frosts, pour on a little warm water to melt the ice rather than smashing it.
Keeping it going for nothing
Feeding doesn't have to mean bought-and-bagged. Kitchen scraps such as mild grated cheese, cooked rice, soaked porridge oats, soft fruit and any suet or fat trimmings will be taken gratefully. Melt lard or suet with a handful of seeds and scraps in an old yoghurt pot, hang it up once set, and you have a fat cake for the price of nothing. Hygiene matters more than fancy hardware: scrub feeders and bowls regularly with hot water and a little washing-up liquid, let them dry, and rotate feeding positions to avoid a build-up of droppings and disease.
Nest boxes can be knocked together from offcuts, roughly 25mm thick, with a 32mm entrance hole for blue tits and a 45mm one for great tits and sparrows. Face them between north and east, away from prevailing wind and direct sun, and put them up by February. Then keep writing it all down: which box was used, when the first fledglings appeared, when the last seed head was stripped bare. Over a few seasons your notebook becomes the most valuable piece of equipment you own.
