Bird-Friendly Garden

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A bird-friendly garden will need a variety of trees and shrubs to provide landing stations and cover for your garden birds, as well as berries and seeds to eat.

Ground-feeding birds, such as blackbirds, wrens and thrushes need to forage in undergrowth for worms and insects. Goldfinches love to pick seeds from teasels and thistles.

Berry plants, such as rowan, elder, honeysuckle, ivy, yew and hawthorn, are all popular summer and autumn food sources. And windfall apples and pears are a welcome dessert.

A wild patch in your garden is very beneficial to wild life, providing a feast of seeds, bugs and caterpillars. Dead branches also house a wealth of creepy crawlies to widen the menu for your garden birds.

Nest boxes will encourage birds to breed but make sure they are made entirely from timber – no metal or ceramic, as these are poor insulators, causing the chicks to either overheat of become too cold and die. Natural nesting sites are ivy-covered walls, old trees and thick hedgerows.

Water is also important in the bird-friendly garden. A pond with shallow fringes and water plants is a great spot for birds to drink and bathe but a dinner plate filled with water and placed in a sheltered spot will do the trick.