The Old Vicarage B&B, Little Ouse

Last year I waited until January when the garden was blanketed in a frost before putting the bird feeders out. This year, as I was changing the feeding station area, I thought it was time to familiarise the birds to the new area.

I put the bird feeders in the dishwasher every few days, to keep them clean, when in use. I’m using three at the moment. They are the same ones as last year. They were cleaned and stored over the summer in the shed

• One to put fat balls or fat sticks in. The birds can demolish this in a single day when it is cold.
• Peanuts – I don’t think this one is a great success in the plastic tube. I will replace it with a wire one shortly.
• Seed – This one also goes pretty fast. The crows are pretty clever and work in teams. They will take it in turns to swing from this so that the seed falls to the ground so that they all get some.

I have a metpost in the lawn facing the church where I place a signpost when hosting summer parties. Having found a spare fence post in the shed, I thought this would be a far superior place to place the feeders here this year. It is in the middle of the grass area, so any predators can be seen approaching. It is also close enough to the main living room windows to be able to keep an eye on them feeding and see how much feed is available.

I need to pop to the DIY shop and get a third bracket. I have also placed the brackets this year with the hook facing up. last year the crows being large birds were finding it awkward to get the seed, so they worked out how to push the feeders off the hook. For the peanut one, once they had pushed it off, the squirrels then came and managed to pull the bottom cover off to release the nuts. Now that is teamwork!

When it is busy/cold, I also scatter some loose nuts and feed on the patio for the larger birds and just brush it with a watering can with disinfectant every few days.