Many of us help birds through the lean winter months by putting out food in our gardens, but the farmland finches and buntings rarely visit garden feeders unless they are in very rural areas. As the winter merges into spring, many birds find it difficult to get enough food. Perhaps strangely, finches and buntings have a particularly difficult time. There are a few reasons. Most significant is the fact that their prime natural food source—ie seeds are in short supply. Lots of birds have been feeding on those plants that still have seeds on them, and most seeds left over in the fields after harvesting have been eaten. During spring at places at latitudes such as the UK experience mass movements of birds including finches making their way north and east to breed. This put even more strain on scarce supplies of seed. Furthermore, during early spring although the weather is warming, there are often extreme fluctuations and regular frosts; again increasing the demand for food to enable the birds to maintain their body heat and hence their wellbeing. Partly as a result of these factors, and others, many of these species are declining in large enough numbers to be classified as Red Data species, which are deemed to be particularly vulnerable and in need of help. With this very much in mind, Tim at Brewood Park Farm signed up to the Winter Supplementary Feed Programme to see what he could do to provide some help for some of these Red Data, and other species.
So which species are we talking
about? Here are some of them.
This is a male Linnet
This is a male Brambling
This is a female Yellowhammer
This is a female Reed Bunting
Two years ago, Tim purchased a
mechanical seed feeder ( see below) which proved to be successful, so ahead of
winter 22/23 he bought two more. All 3 are placed at various areas around the
farm-near hedgerows so the birds can fly to and from the feeding area from safe
cover.
The three main benefits of these seed
feeders are:-
-- they only need to be topped up with
seed once a week so easy to maintain,
-- the timer can be set to replenish seed
whenever needed,
-- the spin mechanism spreads the
seed out over a large area.
It’s fascinating watching birds gather on the nearby hedges and telegraph wires ahead of the time the spinner is due to spread seed!!
How successful have these spinners been? We have a lot of data on this but perhaps focussing on data from March 2023 will illustrate the benefit.
We ran 6 ringing sessions at the feeding stations during March. Unfortunately we weren’t able to run any more sessions because of unsuitable weather. Nevertheless, we managed to ring...
177 Linnets (red data)
12 Brambling
44 Reed Buntings
25 Yellowhammer (red data)
14 Chaffinch
Although these are impressive totals, they represent only a fraction of the total numbers of each of these species actually SEEN at the feeding stations. We believe that the Yellowhammers are probably resident birds either nesting on the farm or in the near vicinity. The other species are probably passage migrants since few are seen on the farm during the breeding season. Daily counts show that for Linnet in most days the flock was in the hundreds, Chaffinches and Reed Buntings up to a hundred, and Brambling 20+. Of course, it is impossible to know from day to day how many of these are the same birds as they are actively moving through, as shown by the very small number of birds recaptured This suggests that the total number of birds benefitting from the supplementary feed is likely to be in the thousands.
Having seen such success at his farm, Tim is now wanting to persuade other farmers to get involved in this Winter Feed Programme. He gives regular talks to farmers and agricultural specialists at home and abroad on "no till" farm management and its benefits to wildlife and birds in particular. He will be using the results from his winter feeding success to show others what can be achieved.
From our perspective as birders and
ringers, as always it is and big ‘thank you’ to the land owners at Brewood Park
Farm and Tim for the interest and enthusiasm and it particular the provision of
the mechanical seed feeders.
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