Richmond is full of wonderful birds. As we continue to urbanize the city, pushing birds to the outskirts, we need to give them a hand.
Spring:
- Check bird feeders
- Replace broken ones or fix up anything broken
- Add a birdbath or clean out your current birdbath
- Plant native flowers
- Include sunflowers – their seeds in late summer are a great food source
- Clean your birdfeeder
- Spring is a great time to do some maintenance
- It should be cleaned every two weeks or so
- Use only natural treatments on your garden
- Any pesticides, herbicides or homemade remedies will have an impact on birds
Summer:
- Add a birdbath to your garden
- Any shallow dish will work but terra cotta is preferred
- Add stones for the birds to be able to perch
- Birds are attracted to moving water – add a waterfall or a bottle with holes punched in to add moving water
- Clean the bath regularly
- Place it in an area safe from predators
Fall:
- Keep your garden a little messy
- Leave seeds, especially sunflower seeds, in the garden as a food source
- Keep foliage for birds to nest in or to build their nest from
- Put up a bird feeder
- Add seeds, natural peanut butter or other nut butters, suet
- Feeders allow resident birds to build up enough energy for the winter
- Don’t put the feeder too close to a window to prevent collisions
- Leave fallen leaves under trees
- This provides shelter for birds
- Attracts insects that are another source of food
- Put up decals on windows to prevent bird strike
- Migrating birds are at a higher risk of striking windows
- They can be disorientated or distracted by light pollution
- Clean out bird boxes
Winter:
- Put up bird boxes in sheltered areas
- Make sure they’re clean and windproof
- Paint the in darker colours to absorb the most heat from the sun
- Add nesting material so birds can fill holes
- Woodchips, dry grass, dead leaves, animal fur
- Water is integral for bird survival in the winter
- Be careful as birds can easily freeze if they touch ice or cold water then something metal
- Place a plastic grate over the birdbath to prevent them from touching the water, but also lets them drink
- Fill the bird feeders with high-calorie seeds and suet
- Black oil sunflower seed
- Peanuts
- Millet
- Fresh or dried fruit, can be mixed into suet
- Add some salt to the bird feeder
**Try to avoid bird seed mixes that have a lot of corn, wheat, & milo