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Even if You Live In a Black of Flats, Your Balcony Is Enough to Feed Birds. As Long as You Follow a Few Important Rules

You need to remember that you have to feed birds right if you don’t want to cause more harm than good. That is why read these few hints to you do it appropriately.

Prepare a good bird feeder

You can make one yourself or get one in any gardening or DIY store. The first option is definitely much more rewarding and pleasant, as you can do something useful together with your family. All you need is a bunch of wooden slats and the basic tools. Remember it’s got to have a roof so that the food will stay dry.

When the bird table is ready, you have to consider the right spot. It has to be somewhere calm without exposure to wind. It also needs to be off bushes and shrubs so that no predators can reach it too easily. OF course it has to be easily approachable and visible for birds – they need to find their way there.

Smart feeding

Remember that once you star feeding birds, you have to be consistent. Also, remember that you feed them only in really bad weather conditions.
What should the menu include? The best mixtures can be found in pet shops and gardening stores.

You can also buy sunflower seeds, peanuts, walnuts or oat flakes. Some birds love tallow and bacon, so you can melt the fat and add the nuts and seeds. Please note that the tallow has also got its best-before date and shouldn’t be left outside for longer than 3 weeks.
Under no circumstances should you feed birds with bread! Especially when it’s gone bad and moldy. It offers no nutritional value for birds and, in fact, could be really hazardous for birds.

Would you like a snack or something to drink?

As for drinking water, things get a little bit more complicated here. To handle this inconvenience, you can get online a dedicated heated water stations. Another option is pouring some fresh lukewarm water in the morning when birds usually eat.

A number of species like eating fresh fruit. Their pieces, however, should be left somewhere outside the bird table, for example on a fence or on branches. Birds will easily find them and eat with pleasure. Apples are best in this respect.

Keep it all clean

The easiest way to keep the table clean is to fix a food dispenser. You pour the stuff into a container and the device, using the natural force of gravity, slowly releases the food. There is no risk of contaminating the food with excrements.
If you have a standard bird table and you don’t want your gets to suffer from food poisoning, you need to clean it on regular basis.

Balcony birds

If you live in a block of flats, you can also feed birds. Just pay attention to what happens all around you to make sure it is clean. You should focus on feeding small birds ( as sparrows and tomtits cause no harm) while flocks of crows and pigeons can infuriate your entire neighborhood due to the excrements they leave everywhere.

To attract small birds, get a bird feeder with a dispenser. Pigeons and other big birds can’t use it.
Pour in a mixture of grain that hasn’t got too many tiny pieces. While birds browse in there, some small pieces fall and then come to rats and other rodents to feast on that. And this is the last thing we want to achieve.
Forget peas and corn as they attract pigeons. And if the birds spill the food, don’t forget to clean it up immediately.

There is an alternative to grain – a ball of fat with some snacks sunken in it. You can hang them even on the balcony railing and birds will gobble it all up anyway.

And even if you haven’t got a balcony, you can fix a bird feeder to your window. Although it has to be small and light, tine birds will visit it for sure.

Feeding water birds

If, during a family walk, you feel like feeding some ducks or swans, remember not to give them any bread. In their natural habitat birds don;t eat bread – it is only made by and for humans. Water birds eat certain plants and if they have bread, they may fall ill with a disease called ‘angel’s wing’. It is a wing deformation resulting in bird’s inability to fly or even death.

So what should we feed these birds with? Pet shops offer dedicated food for water birds (it must not contain any salt). Alternatively you can prepare cooked vegetables, cereal, oats or grain. Everything has to be boiled and dried first. And we never throw the food into the water – we just put it by the shore. Believe me – birds much more prefer eating from the ground than picking it up from water.

It is really important to help our feathered friends. It has been scientifically proven to boost the release of endorphins!

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