Beautiful dawn chorus

The dawn chorus is back in full swing!

As we approach the end of May, the garden birds are voicing their joy every morning and soon, in early June they will be at their peak, so now is the time to get up early one weekend and go into the countryside and just sit and listen.

Every year for those of us lucky enough to live in the rural countryside (Shropshire in our case) we are woken in the morning with a beautiful dawn chorus coming through the bedroom window, Blackbirds, Robins, Blue Tits, Finches, even the young Starlings are making a sort of nice noise with their chattering and clicking and with the sunshine showering us in a summers day what better start can we have to the day.

If you would like to encourage wild birds into your garden then you can do so by providing them with a source of fresh food and water, the water is easy, just some fresh tap water every day in a shallow bowl, as for the wild bird food, well you really do have a massive choice, but there are a few do's and don'ts to bear in mind when feeding your garden birds.

DON'T:-

• Feed bread - it swells in their stomachs and has little nutritional value.
• Feed whole peanuts unless in a wire mesh feeder - whole nuts can choke young birds, use granulated nuts for tray feeders.
• Feed bird food that has gone moldy or damp.
• Use cheap bird food mixes that only contain wheat or grass seed, grit and cracked maize etc there is very little nutritional value in these seeds and they will fill the birds with rubbish and  they will become under nourished.

DO:-

• Feed your wild birds with a good seed mix from a reputable source.
• Feed high energy foods like suet, Dried Mealworms, fruit, Sunflower Hearts and Peanuts.
• Provide fresh drinking and bathing water
• Keep your feeding tray and bird feeders clean - clean them out every week or so - longer if you don't have too many birds, say every third time you fill the feeder, then give it a brush through, then a thorough wash every month. This will prevent diseases like Tricomonosis being passed on.