Page 14 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

WILD FEBRUARY

The only real advice when watching wildlife this most readily are the tits – great tit is
MIKE in your garden should be to sit back and ‘top dog’ and the second in command is
undeniably the petite but pugnacious blue tit.
enjoy the show. February weather is so wildly
DILGER unpredictable but a happy hour observing the Faced with such feisty competition, the timid
ebb and flow through your green real estate coal tit will often be relegated to adjacent
bushes, until they can dash in for a beakful.
WILDLIFE Using your house (the world’s most luxurious NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH
can be done without having to step outside.
hide) keeps you warm and dry, and minimises
WATCHING wildlife disturbance. Find a comfy seat that The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)
estimate that a single garden feeding station
offers a good view of your garden – preferably
with the kettle and biscuit jar within easy reach!
can attract as many as 200 individual blue tits
When you look out through the window it
In a winter garden may appear that winter is the least profitable in a single day. Despite this, you rarely see more
than one or two on a feeder even at the busiest
season for a ‘gardenwatch’ session, yet during times. Blue tits form roving bands with other
If you need a cheap, carbon a cold snap it is quite the opposite. As food bird species to work a regular ‘beat’, moving
neutral and easy wildlife in the countryside dwindles or becomes from feeder to feeder within a neighbourhood.
fix this winter, then look no difficult for species to access, the shy become In addition to the tits, finches and robins
further than your closest nature shameless and the quiet find their voice. attracted by the free handouts, it is also
reserve, which also happens Most mammals, reptiles and invertebrates worth keeping an eye out for special guest
to be cunningly disguised as are either still hibernating or keeping a low appearances from brambling, siskin and
your own back garden. profile, so although you can see foxes, badgers blackcap, which are guaranteed to brighten
up any armchair viewing.
and squirrels in late winter, it is unashamedly up any armchair viewing.
a time when birds take centre stage. On a
crisp, clear day, and from dawn until at least MIKE DILGER is a naturalist and TV presenter. Read
DILGER’S DOS lunchtime, stocked feeders become very about his wildlife voyage for The One Show on p38.
AND DON’TS popular amongst the avian community
– feeding perches have to adopt a strict
DON’T FORGET TO
PRACTISE GOOD ‘one in, one out’ policy as the birds
FEEDER HYGIENE by jostle for a calorific lifeline.
giving the dispensers Feeders offer a fascinating
a regular wash. You insight into the pecking order.
wouldn’t like mouldy,
stale food and the The group which tends to show
birds don’t either.
DO REMEMBER TO
MELT DRINKING
WATER on frosty
days. With snow on
the ground it can be a
Fox: Brian Bevan/ardea.com (controlled conditions); feeder: Mike Dilger; siskin: Alan Williams/naturepl.com; blackcap: Gianpiero Ferrari/FLPA
case of “water, water
everywhere, but not a
drop to drink”.

AS FOOD DWINDLES, THE
` SHY BECOME SHAMELESS AND
THE QUIET FIND THEIR VOICE.”

14 BBC Wildlife February 2018