A Berry Merry Christmas for Your Garden Birds

How to treat your garden birds this Christmas

A berry merry Christmas. As you decorate your house with twinkly lights and tinsel, spare a thought for our british garden birds who don’t share our same Christian traditions. But this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a festive celebration. At Kennedy Wild Bird Food, we have come up with a whole bunch of ingenious and festive ideas for your garden to help the wildlife. While they may not be as impressive as a dancing Father Christmas or a dazzling reindeer, they will be sure to attract birds.

I am sure you’ll agree that attracting birds to your garden will help brighten it up much more than any novelty neon ornament during these long cold days. Just prepare to get a bit messy!

Monkey Nuts and Popcorn & Berry Tinsel

If you have bags of patience, than this is a fantastic decoration for your trees and bushes. What you need:

• Monkey nuts and/ or unsalted plain popcorn
• Berries
• Tough twine
• A needle

Thread the tasty treats along the twine and then hang the string around or across a tree or hedge. How long it is is entirely up to you. So if you have a spare half an hour sat in front of the TV, why not give it a go!

Dipped Pine Cones

First of all you’ll need to find some foraged pine cones that are open and intact. What you need:

• A large bowl
• String
• Lard
• Any kind of our bird seed
• Crushed nuts
• Porridge oats (optional)

Now this one is simple. All you need to do is warm the lard until it becomes a liquid. Combine the rest of your mixture and the lard into the bowl and roll your pine cones around in the mix until you’re happy they are packed with tasty bird treats.

Just pop them in the fridge to set and when they have firmed up nicely just choose a tree or hedge to hang them from. You can bet that members of the tit family will be at the front of the queue.

Colourful fat baubles

To make these festive delights you will need exactly the same recipe as the pine cone treats, however, you will need to add some food colouring (which won’t harm the birds). When you have got them all mixed and in a range of vibrant colours, roll them into balls while the lard is still pliable.

During this stage you will also need to poke a hole through the middle and thread some string through them, tying a knot at the end. Next tie a loop in the other end so you can hang them up practically anywhere. Let them firm up in the fridge for a few hours and hang them up once solid.

If you have them handy, Christmas themed dough cutters will allow you to make lardy stars or lardy trees etc. Keep your eyes peeled for our bird friendly mince pies recipe next week!