Bird Feeding - A Cheap And Enjoyable Hobby

As the economy continues to deteriorate, families find themselves having to find entertainment and hobbies that they can afford and yet, still enjoy. As a result, more and more families are rediscovery birding or feeding birds as a fun inexpensive hobby.

Bird watching or birding, which is already one of the more popular past times in the country, is destined to become even more popular. Feeding birds has always been a hobby that many people without a lot of money enjoyed. Walk to any city park on a nice day and you may see city residents sitting on the park benches and dropping bread crumbs for the visiting birds. If you own a home, you can do the same thing in your back yard.

Feeding birds is a fun activity that the entire family can enjoy together - the adults as well as the children. You don't need to buy special expensive equipment, you don't have to spend a lot of money traveling to far away places, and you don't have to build your schedule around the timing of specific events. Birds are pretty much active at some sort of activity practically all times of the day giving you plenty of time to enjoy your past time.

The key to attracting birds to your yard is providing them with food. You can even aim towards attracting specific species of birds by placing their food favorites it your back yard feeders. When birds discover that your yard has food, which they eventually will, you may find your yard turning into a virtual aviary.

And, if you have trees or suitable nesting places nearby, you may even find some taking up residence in your back yard to be near the new source of food that they have discovered. You may find that watching some of these bird families are as much enjoyable a attending the latest romantic or action film in the movies.

Finding nourishment to give to the birds is not expensive at all. In fact, you can make quite a few of the recipes yourself. And, you don't have to provide all of the food that the birds eat, you are only supplementing it. It only takes a little food to attract them to your garden or yard.

Introducing your kids to feeding birds teaches them how connected we all are to nature and teaches them to respect it. Feeding birds is also an activity that brings the family closer together. If history is a guide, your kids will look back on this time you spent with them as some of the best times of their lives.

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Tips On Feeding Birds In Winter

You don't have to wear binoculars, an anorak and a dodgy hat to appreciate the beauty of birds.

A simple bird feeder in your garden will attract many different breeds like the Robin, Greenfinch, Blue Tit, Chaffinches and many more. You will have continual visits from your winged friends if you can provide them with the right bird food for winter.

Water is another necessity for birds that people tend to forget in winter. With the cold weather we all assume water will be readily available but cold winters can mean dry winters and water of course freezes. So make sure there's a fresh, ice free, bowl of water in the garden every day for them to drink from and bathe in. Never feed them milk as they can't digest it. However cheese (grated if possible) is perfectly fine for birds and may attract new varieties of wildlife to your garden.

Selecting the right bird stand is your first job. Not all birds will use the perches on the stand, some will prefer to peck at fallen seeds or feed from individual hanging feeders. The more attention you pay to your visitors the more you will find out their habits and favourite feeding areas.

If you do buy a bird stand then I would suggest a sturdy one that isn't going to wobble. Birds tend to fly off at the first sign of an unstable stand. Place your table away from fences and walls, birds won't thank you if a feline intruder pounces whilst they're eating. Their survival instincts will alert them to any danger of movement and they will be unsure of returning.

Next is the food.

As insects aren't available to birds in the winter, seeds become their staple diet.

There are a lot of mixed bird seeds on the market which are bulked up. I tend to avoid anything with unnatural coloured lumps in them as they're usually dog biscuits which can't be eaten unless softened by soaking. A good mixture should contain millet, sunflower seeds and flaked maize. I also like to feed the obvious choice of peanuts as they are high in fats but don't feed them salted peanuts, it could kill them. As small birds can choke on whole peanuts, I usually crush them before putting them out.

Black sunflower seeds are fantastic all year long as well and they have a higher fat content than the striped sunflower seeds. It's advisable to put the richer seeds like Nyger and sunflower in feeders as they will be more expensive and you will lose a lot to the weather and other animals if you just scatter them on the ground. The Nyger seed contains more oil than your average seed and is high in calories, so perfect for winter feeding. As they aren't a cheap variety of seed you can always mix them in with others. You should find the number of Goldfinches in your garden increases with Nyger seeds.

Wet dog and cat food is a good substitute for earthworms in the cold weather and kitchen scraps can be used as they contain fats and carbohydrates that won't be found in bird seeds. However don't feed them cooking fat that has hardened from your Sunday roast as it will contain bacteria and salt that is unsuitable for birds. Instead use lard or beef suet. It's strongly advised from the RSPB not to leave the suet fat balls in nylon meshes as birds can get themselves caught. Instead put them in hanging feeders and keep them off the ground as you may attract unwanted mammals.

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