Feeding garden birds is one of the simplest pleasures going — and if you do it well, you’ll be rewarded with a busy, lively garden through every season.
Small birds have very little fat reserve, so being able to reach energy-rich, good-quality food every day is hugely important. They need enough fuel to make it through the night, whatever the weather decides to do. In cold snaps, wet spells, and during nesting season, the right food can make a real difference.
It’s tempting to grab the cheapest bag on the shelf, but low-cost bird food often contains fillers rather than proper, high-energy ingredients. Some poor mixes may include things birds won’t eat (or can’t benefit from), and others can contain “bulking” ingredients that offer very little nutritional value.
If you’ve ever noticed a feeder being ignored it’s often the mix — not the birds.
A good rule of thumb: if it looks dusty, very mixed with bits and bobs, or mostly made up of light grains, it’s usually not the most worthwhile choice.
If you keep these four staples topped up, you’ll cover most visitors and encourage a wider variety of birds across the year.
Seed is the everyday staple for many garden birds.
Top tip: If you want the most activity with the least mess, sunflower hearts are a favourite because they’re high energy and birds don’t need to remove husks. Birds will always chuck out the feeder what they don’t want at that time to get the best bits. They can regulate their eating so they get a balanced diet and Sunflower hearts are normally what they are after when they start doing this.
Best for: finches, sparrows, tits, robins (often from the ground), dunnocks and more.
Peanuts are a fantastic high-calorie food, especially helpful in colder weather.
A few important rules:
Best for: great tits, blue tits, woodpeckers, nuthatches and coal tits.
Suet is like the “Sunday roast” of bird food — rich, hearty, and hugely popular.
It comes in all sorts of forms:
Suet is especially valuable in winter and during busy times like nesting and fledging, when adult birds are working hard from dawn to dusk.
Best for: almost everyone — tits, starlings, woodpeckers, robins, wrens, blackbirds (often from fallen pieces), and more.
Mealworms are a brilliant choice, particularly if you love seeing robins, wrens, and insect-loving birds up close.
If you’re feeding dried mealworms during fledging time, it’s a good idea to soak them in clean water first to rehydrate them — it makes them softer and more useful for young birds.
Best for: robins, wrens, blackbirds, starlings and many fledglings.
If you want the easiest “set and stick” routine, try this:
That combination gives birds choice, reduces squabbling, and helps you see more species.
Birds need maximum energy. Keep supplies topped up and feeders clean. Suet and peanuts really come into their own.
Adults are working hard and feeding chicks. Stick to high-quality, nutritious foods, and ensure peanuts are offered safely in a feeder.
Summer is actually a difficult time to find food. We tend to either get lots of hot dry weather or lots of rain. Its not stable anymore and insects struggle to survive, all the grain on farmland is heavily cleared. Theres not much food out there during summer as berries and apples are still not ripe. The days are longer so they need food to support this. So they will actually need to get to easy to find food in Summer probably more than any other time of year.
Birds are fuelling up and preparing for colder nights. This is a great time to keep a steady routine, especially as natural supplies start to dip.
To keep birds safe and your garden tidy:
Different birds like different foods, and they also prefer different feeding heights and styles. If you provide a mix of food and feeders, you’ll almost always attract a nice variety of birds visiting your garden throughout the year.
And if you ever feel like you’re only getting one or two regulars — don’t worry. Keep it consistent. Birds are creatures of habit, and once they trust your garden as a reliable stop, you’ll see the numbers grow.
