Treat hungry birds with Berries and seedheads

As we enter the cold months, native and visiting birds need food and shelter to keep them going until spring – and our gardens can supply it, says Anne Swithinbank

- Anne Swithinbank

THE bird population of our semirural garden in East Devon may not include any rarities but it is impressive in both number and variety. I see it as my job to provide our feathered friends with suitable habitat and a rich, natural larder, while in return they supply song, colour, antics and pest control. Sharing my garden with wild birds means a lot to me and I find them as attractive and fascinating as a border full of flowers. Late autumn is a good time to look at your garden from their perspective and ask whether it delivers enough habitat and natural food to help them through winter.

Most birds have a varied diet; for instance, song thrushes famous for tapping snails from their shells will eat insects, worms and fruits – as will blackbirds. Skittering flocks of long tailedtits feed on insects and seeds, chiffchaffs are also fond of insects, and charms of goldfinches feast on seeds.

The best thing we can do for our birds is add more plants capable of producing not just berries but shrubby thickets for roosting and nesting, plus tall, twiggy corridors linking gardens together.

Perfect partnership

Birds have learned to live alongside us so cleverly, with flocks of cheeky sparrows roosting in roadside hedges, starlings raiding the fruits of cordylines on busy seafronts and, in spring, great tits building nests in the unlikeliest of places. Features to help them along include boundary or dividing hedges, perhaps of wild berry-bearing hawthorn, elder, holly, dog rose, honeysuckle and wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana).

Clad walls and fences with thickets of firethorn or Virginia creeper and you can stand back and watch the birds tussle with their turquoise berries.