Hunt for bargains and birds won’t go hungry

A RETIRED couple who are regular readers of this page have sent me a long email about the pleasure and satisfaction they get from feeding the birds in their garden.

However, the email also mentions they are attracting so many birds they’re having difficulty affording the feed. I can see how this could be a problem. Peanuts are actually quite cheap if you shop around and buy in bulk. But niger seed costs about €10 a kilo and although my feeder only allows two birds pick out the tiny black seeds one at a time the goldfinches and siskins can easily get through a kilo in a week to ten days.

Niger seed, which is sometimes wrongly labelled as thistle seed, was developed as a human food crop in the highlands of Ethiopia. It is very high in both proteins and oils, which is why it’s so popular with wild birds. Its size makes it particularly popular with goldfinches and siskins because both these species are finches that specialise in eating small seeds.

The niger seed on sale in the Irish market is imported from Ethiopia and it has to be sterilised before its allowed in to prevent the plant becoming an invasive weed in our countryside. This is what makes it so expensive.

But there are ways to reduce the cost of feeding wild birds. In the feed merchants where I buy food for my poultry I can buy a 25kg sack of rolled oats, designed for feeding horses, for €7.50. This goes a long way and wild birds love it. It’s particularly popular with chaffinches, which were obviously named by somebody very observant because they delight in sorting the chaff from the oats.

Robins, blackbirds and sparrows like oats too and even the goldfinches will eat them when the niger seed feeder is empty.

When I first started feeding birds, which is rather a long time ago, most frying was done in lard. Nowadays vegetable oils have largely replaced animal fats. But you can still buy lard and suet and melt them down to mix with seeds or wholemeal breadcrumbs to make your own fat blocks or balls which will be a lot cheaper than those on sale in garden centres.

But probably the best food for wild birds is the food they find naturally in the countryside. You can collect it yourself for free on a country walk, though this is more an activity for the late summer and the autumn. Berries — elderberries are particularly good — can be dried by spreading them out on a sunny windowsill and they will keep for months. Acorns and hazelnuts will keep all winter but you’ll have to crack them for the smaller birds. You can rub the tiny seeds out of ripe alder cones between your palms but you’ll have to pull the scales apart on pine and fir cones for most birds.

Most ‘weed’ seeds make great wild bird food. Docks, thistles, stinging nettles, knapweed and ragwort are particularly good. The technique is to put the seed heads in a brown paper bag (not plastic) and store them for a few weeks in a warm, dry place — a hot press is ideal. Then you just shake and slap the bag and the seeds fall into the bottom and the rest goes on the compost heap.

And before you email me, the theory that you should stop feeding wild birds in the breeding season is now regarded as old-fashioned. Modern British research indicates that the extra food is even more vital at this time of year.

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