As its so cold our bird feeder has been seeing more birds than usual and they're being braver.
Putting out scraps (no bread) like bacon rind, left over meat, bits of cheese is ideal.
Also peanuts. sunflower hearts in a feeder are best, fat balls (take out of the netting though).
All these need to be near cover, so cats or sparrow hawks have less chance of catching them.
Also any bird baths need fresh water.
But if you go around handing them food on a plate aren't you just encouraging them to breed ?
Why no bread?
Yes I am cranberry.
Bread doesn't hold much nutrients or energy for a bird, nor do oats, which cheap bird feed bags seem to contain.
If I put food out I'll end up with hundreds of massive sea gulls in my garden 
It's the middle sized birds I feel sorry for. They're really feeling the squeeze and won't breed as much now there's less food about.
Also any bird baths need fresh water.
Won't the water freeze?
Use feeders if you can. We have a bird table which would be hard for a large pigeon or gull to get onto.
Its quite exciting when birds like goldfinches or the odd woodpecker arrives out of nowhere and become regular visitors
If you feed them you'll never encourage them to go out and get a job.
Guys - I'm not David Attenborough you know. Just a keen amateur wildlife lover.
What about sunflower seeds?
Are they the fatty equivalent of doing fast food?
I have been filling my two feeders up every other day
i love seeing the birds feed in the garden and so does my 2yr old 
Yep - its great for the children. My nephew used to shout ' look auntie a gold tit'.
We have all just had a letter off the managing agents saying not to feed the birds, it appears the resident grumpy has complained again about something minor, and it gets blown out of all proportion.
Oh and when i used to visit a mate in chester a neighbour decided i shouldnt park where i was parked, so one day i came out the car was covered in birds, it appears the bird loving old git had threw bread and seeds over any car that parked below his window.
Have you seen the price you pay for bird tables!
That's peed me off big time!
I have some spare wood & some spare time this weekend, pics to follow 
Don't expect anything fancy mind.
Apologies to the mods, but the above was not intended to offend anyone.
We always feed the birds. We save the fat from any cooking and mix it with seeds in a coconut shell and have a nut feeder as well. They tend to get cake and bread crumbs too, it's better than throwing them away. We have a good community of birds, finches, tits, sparrows, robins etc and I know there's a thrush becasue I see the broken snail shells sometimes. I love the birds, they have it tough, so feeding them is cool I reckon. 
Because birds have never managed to find their own food in the last thousand years. It's a good job we are all going to feed them before they get wiped out
So I take it, sun flower seeds are ok?
We got a buck load of seeds that the kids collected from some sunflowers they grew in the garden this year
It is a sad fact but some bird species are indeed being wiped out.
Sparrows, starlings, and now green finches are well down on numbers. These are all birds that wouldn't be seen again if not for thousands of people feeding them.
If you haven't got a garden go to the local park, within a couple of minutes a robin will be following you, if there's food about.
s - yep sunflower seeds are perfect. The hearts are even better, however it would take ages to peel off the husk.
Looking forward to seeing the bird table.
Man with wood and tools in the great outdoors always seems a happy man.
Oh that reminds me I have a Ham bone to hang out. Poor birds were trying to get insects from my pebble dash this am.
Any suggestions on what bird food doesn't attract rats
I put ground food out (on a dangly tray thing), sunflower seeds in a feeder, water, and peanuts in two other feeders. We have a thriving colony of sparrows (50+) great tits, blue tits, willow tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, chaffinches, dunnocks, greater spoted woodpecker, green woodpeckers, collared doves, stock doves, woodies (yuk), blackbirds, robin(s) thrushes, wrens, the occasional starling, crow, pheasant, red legged partridge, field fare, moorhen, mistle thrush, gold finches but very few greenfinches any more. To top all this off, we have a semi resident sparrow hawk who uses our garden like a sushi bar.
When I have clients round to discuss business, they spend more time watching the birds that listening to me!
The reason we need to feed birds now is that we have destroyed a lot of their habitat.
Don't put your food on the floor and rats won't get it. Hang it from trees.
Mrs R puts out fat-balls which seem to be much liked by the sparrows and finches although I worry that it's the bird equivalent of giving them a McDonalds.
sparrow hawks have less chance of catching them
There was a sparrow hawk snacking on a sparrow under our birdtable the other day, which I thought was fair enough as they need winter food too.
mmm I've got a fair bit of wood kicking about sounds like a project for the weekend.
Any tips on how big / small they should be and how high off the ground etc..
There's a sparrowhawk at my inlaws that's developed the knack of ambushing birds from under the bird table. It hides in the bushes at ground level then launches itself upwards. Seems to be pretty successful, I think prey birds are programmed to look out for danger from above and so miss the danger from below. Also likes to do flybys on the trees they roost in!
Surely they should at a level that is ideal for cats, therefore providing an ideal chance for a bit if target practice on the lurking cat.
The birds around here go bonkers for sun flower hearts. We've been getting around 20 visits a minute on the feeder. We use fat balls too but they only eat off them if the sunflower feeder is empty.
Picked up a long tail tIt off the road today. Luckily after a bit of warming in my jacket it flew off happy as larry.
Mmmmmmm... fat balls.... mmm
Because birds have never managed to find their own food in the last thousand years. It's a good job we are all going to feed them before they get wiped out
Some one always comes out with this bollocks.
We didn't have large scale industrial farming of homogenised crops, pesticide use, and the widespread destruction of hedgerows a thousand years ago!
Most wild bird numbers are measurably declining.
I'm quite happy to feed the birds.
Our cat is also quite happy if we feed the birds as he then brings the birds in. In bits
put anti freeze in the water.. oh ..
Putting a ping pong ball or something in the water (that will move with the wind), helps to keep it ice free.
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