How to feed birds in your garden
Attract birds all year round by creating a wildlife-friendly garden
By creating a wildlife-friendly garden, you can help birds to thrive outside your window!
Growing plants that give birds a natural food source is the best way to help them and here are some of our top tips:
- Plant a native tree which will provide wildlife with shelter and food
- Choose native hedging bushes and ramblers, such as hawthorn, hornbeam, blackthorn, ivy and bramble, which provide an abundance of berries and seeds for birds
- Leave seed heads over the winter – goldfinches particularly enjoy teasels!
- Welcome insects into your garden – an important food source for birds. We have lots of guides to help you to do this, from creating a wildlife pond, to leaving grass to grow long and adding a log pile.
You can also supplement naturally available food with bird food, and watch them flock in!
Remember to keep bird feeders clean, so the birds stay healthy and disease-free, and position your feeders in a relatively open area away from predators - the birds will feel safer and visit more.
Thanks to scientific research from the RSPB, we now know more about how to reduce the risk of diseases spreading when feeding garden birds. This is especially important during summer and autumn when the risk of diseases spreading is higher.
Keep your garden birds safe
- Clean bird feeders weekly. If it’s possible, regularly move your feeders to different spots to prevent the build up of food underneath
- Feed little and often: never provide large amounts of food all at once, as this can quickly build up and begin to rot.
- Change water in bird baths and saucers daily, and clean them weekly.
- Use hanging bird feeders and not flat tables: the research shows there’s a higher risk of disease spreading on flat surfaces.
Feed seasonally
- From November to April, feed seeds and peanuts, when the benefits to birds are the highest
- Pause feeding seeds and peanuts between May and October. During this time the risk of disease is higher and there are more natural sources of food for birds available. There is also little evidence that supplementary feeding benefits birds during these months
- You can offer mealworms, fat balls or suet year-round in moderation
Five main types of bird food:
- Straight seeds – as the name suggests, these seeds aren’t mixed with anything. Straight seeds include black sunflower, niger, oilseed rape, peanuts, red and white millet.
- Seed mixes – here the seeds are mixed into different blends, with the main advantage being that a greater mix of seed types attracts a greater mix of bird species.
- Husk-free seed mixes – similar to the above, the seeds in these mixes have had their husks removed and the advantage of this is twofold: much less mess to clear up and birds which can’t crack husks – e.g. Blackbirds – can also eat the mix. Some husk-free mixes also contain other foods like dried mealworms and suet pellets.
- Suet (also called fat) – this food comes as blocks, balls and pellets. Lots of birds like suet and it provides a vital source of energy for them and particularly in the winter months.
- Live mealworms – a brilliant food to provide in the breeding and fledgeling season.
Four ways of providing food:
- Hanging seed feeders - these will attract robins, tits, goldfinches, house sparrows, tree sparrows and greenfinches.
- Niger/Nyjer seed feeders - designed to hold tiny niger seed they will attract goldfinches and redpolls.
- Mesh peanut feeders - peanuts should always be put in mesh feeders to avoid them being chocked on. The mesh means that only small pieces can be pecked out.
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Homemade - half coconuts or a pine cone covered in fat or vegetable suet can be hung from a tree or bird table. They will attract tits, greenfinches and house sparrows.
Get started with our instructions below!
Top tips
- Keep feeders clean - this stops the spread of diseases.
- Plant food sources - If your garden plants have fruit, berries, hips, seeds and nuts, they'll be a larder for birds, particularly in late summer and autumn. Holly, hawthorn, ivy, rowan, honeysuckle and dogwood all provide tasty treats or attract tasty insects.
- Keep feeding stations away from predators - feeders near shrubs make it easy for cats to pounce.
- Only put out what gets eaten - this way you won't attract unwanted guests.
- Remember water - water is as important as food to most garden birds, and not just for drinking but for bathing as well. So put out a bird bath along with your feeders, clean the water daily and clean the bird bath weekly. Find out more about providing water for wildlife