A garden for birds

Over the last couple of years my husband and I have tried to make our tiny little garden a bit of a haven for wildlife, especially birds. Here is the state of it currently.

That's my view out the kitchen window. It makes doing the washing up a lot more fun as I watch the birds come and go. In a typical morning I'll see goldfinches, chaffinches, maybe a greenfinch or two, blue tits, great tits, sparrows, magpies, blackbirds, collared doves, wood pigeons, and my favourite, the robin.

Robbie the robin has been visiting the garden for a couple of years for the live mealworms we supply. He has his own private supply that larger birds cannot get to. If his dish is empty he'll come to the top of the little shed next to the kitchen window to see if I'm in there. A couple of times last year he actually flew into the kitchen through the open door.

Below is a young robin that we think is probably one of Robbie's offspring, raised on the mealworms provided by us!

We also feed the hedgehogs, and enjoy sitting in the garden on summer evenings after dark watching them squeeze under the garden gate and make a beeline for the hedgehog food. Haven't had the time to do that much this year but last year one night we saw SIX hedgehogs in the garden at one time. During the day the magpies eat the leftover hedgehog food (it's dry food, called Spike's Dinner).

The young magpie above is trying to work up the nerve to duck under the cover to steal some hedgehog food.