Feed The birds, Let Them Know It's Christmas Time

Photo by Jo Sinclair

A song came up randomly, Dog Treat by Tom Waits. In this song Waits introduces a phenomenon he has come across, a 'real meat snack' for your pet. A little flabbergasted by the origin of said meat, the singer muses on the past life and destiny of a little bit of an animal.

It made me laugh, and it made me think of all the tripe that's on the shelves for Christmas. Out of curiosity I did a search for 'dog Christmas presents' at an online pet superstore. There were 153 products to choose from. A pug modelled an Xmas Pudding Suit. There were Munchy Gold Christmas Coins, a Chocolate Yule Log Dog Treat and a Christmas Character Rope Frisbee Dog Toy (a Santa Claus to chuck and chew). So I was pleasantly surprised to find no such nonsense in the Wildlife section. No Stollen For Starlings or peanuts packaged with holly and gold spangles. But wait, what exactly is Coconut Bucket 10 Pack by Suet To Go? Or Peckish Colourful Bird Mix? Some of this stuff is more luxurious than what gets offered to food bank schemes for human beings.

A BTO article says that the annual UK garden bird food industry is worth £200 million. We've robbed the birds of their food sources with dense developments and intensive farming methods, so we like to try to make up for it. The RSPB's popular Big Garden Birdwatch takes place every January, and shows the continuing drastic decline of two birds we used to think of as common in every sense of the word: starlings and sparrows. In my garden I'm lucky enough to have both, and their presence is boosting the confidence of other species (certainly peckish, but not all of them colourful) that come and wait their turn. A single bluetit sometimes joins in the aerial acrobatics and a robin and dunnock have cottoned onto the crumbs.