Supporting Winter Wildlife: fun activities to support nature in your garden

January is a great time to support the wild birds and animals, who may otherwise struggle to find food. By attracting them to our gardens, it also means that we can watch their activities close up, from the comfort of our own home. Feeding them regularly, means that they are likely to become frequent visitors to our gardens too.

How can we help the birds in winter?

There are many ways to provide food for the birds in winter, depending on the type and range of birds that we want to attract to our garden and the space that we have available. Whether you have a small yard, a balcony, or a vast garden, you can still help by feeding the birds. Different species have their own preferred food types and ways of feeding. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Create fat blocks, by melting suet into natural moulds, such as coconut shells, which are safer for wildlife than plastic nets and better for the environment too
Make peanut cakes for starlings and berry cakes for finches
Put out seed feeders with squirrel guards to attract small birds to your garden and to ensure that the pigeons and squirrels don’t dominate, as they often do with bird tables
Some birds, such as robins, are ground feeders and blackbirds and thrushes enjoy over-ripe fruit, that can be spread out on the ground.

Preparing food treats for the birds is a fun activity for children, who will then get even more hours of enjoyment from spotting the winter visitors enjoying their carefully prepared food. It’s a good idea to have a bird book or bird chart to hand, with the pictures and names of common birds that can be found in your garden at this time of year. Becoming familiar with the different species of birds, will help them to take a more active role in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

What is the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch and how can we take part?

This is an annual event and it is the UK’s largest garden wildlife survey. Running since 1979, each year, around 700,000 people participate.

The Big Garden Birdwatch provides a useful snapshot of garden bird life around the UK. It provides a wealth of data to look back on, that can inform experts about which species are thriving and which are struggling.

It also encourages people to care for the birds that visit their gardens in winter, by providing feeding stations.

The Big Garden Birdwatch is an event that all family members can participate in and it can help children to become more interested in the wildlife around them.

Here’s how to take part:

Register to join the survey in advance and information will be sent to you
Record the birds that you see in your garden or park for one hour, during the weekend of 26^th-28^th January 2024. The hour can be split into chunks if you prefer. The morning is the best time to spot more birds.
Count only those birds that land and record the number of birds from any one species that you see at any given time. For example, if you see 4 starlings together, then you spot 2 starlings later, you record it as 4 starlings. As that was the highest number of starlings at any one time.
Go online to register your count.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/big-garden-birdwatch

Other bird-related children’s activities

After the Big Garden Birdwatch, if your children have been actively engaged in and enjoying doing the survey, you could make it a once-a-month family activity and keep a bird diary. This will help your children to see which birds are common in the different seasons and to identify things like feeding patterns
Draw some of the garden birds that they spot in the garden and/or make a fact file about a garden bird of their choice
Follow bird tracks in the snow
Listen to and learn to identify some common bird calls

How can we help garden animals in winter?

Provide a shallow water dish at ground level for animals to drink from
Take care not to disturb piles of leaves and compost heaps, as many creatures use them for hibernating under
Leave a section of your garden overgrown and cluttered, to create more hiding spots
Make an insect hotel and put it in a sheltered spot
Plant a hedge or make sure that fenceposts are wide enough apart to let hedgehogs through
Build a hedgehog house
Buy a bird box, as it is great for winter shelter, as well as for nesting in the spring

Join our mailing list for lots more nature-based, environmentally friendly activities to do in January and throughout the year.