10 best kept garden bird secrets

If you pay close attention to the visitors in your garden you might notice that there's more than meets the eye to your common or garden birds.

1. Your garden birds aren't your garden birds

It's easy for us to get attached to our garden visitors but some of them are actually foreign imposters.

In autumn months as the weather turns, all sorts of birds flood in from Europe. There are starlings, siskins, bramblings, thrushes, robins, chaffinches, goldcrests, gulls and even pigeons passing through or stopping by for the winter. It's all about food, water and shelter. Gardens tend to have all three, making them the perfect places for birds to hunker down for winter when their summering grounds turn frosty.

And it's not just international. Blackbirds from the east of the UK will move across to the west and south-west in the winter, around the same time that the blackbirds from the continent arrive in the east. This is called chain migration.

So keep an eye out for different characters on your patch or perhaps keep an ear out for a foreign accent!

2. Outnumbered one to ten

There are secret cycles going on in your garden that you might not know about. Birds come and go between their favourite feeding grounds throughout the day.

Ringing studies have shown that at any one time we only see about 10% of our garden visitors. So if you regularly see about 10 blue tits, there are probably around 100 individuals actually using your feeders through the course of the day.

There's more of them than you think!

3. Our feathered friends don't favour feeders

We think we're being helpful but actually feeder designs don't necessarily have the birds in mind.

Given half the chance most garden birds will take food away to eat it in the relative safety of a bush or hedgerow. Feeders are often out in the open where we, and spying predators, can see them but it's much safer for the birds to feed under cover.

Some larger birds such as robins and blackbirds can't land on or cling to birdfeeders, so you may see robins attempting to hover to reach the food.

4. Pecking orders - your birdfeeder bully chain

You might have noticed some minor bickering at the feeders but have you spotted the patterns?

Coal tits will be bullied off the feeders by blue tits and great tits, who in turn give way to nuthatches. They will flee at the arrival of woodpeckers, and all of them will be spooked by the flapping of pigeons.

Within same-species flocks the sinister hierarchies continue. Dominant pigeons force younger and weaker birds to the edge of the group where they become potential sparrowhawk fodder. More gregarious birds such as house sparrows can have complex hierarchies where everyone knows their place.

5. There's more than meets the eye

Good vision is vital for birds and a bird with impaired vision or damaged eyes is not long for this world. Birds have four types of colour receptors in their eyes giving them the ability to see light from outside of our visual ranges.

Much communication between birds is through visual displays and some of this goes on right under our noses without us realising it. The blue tit's cap or the robin's red breast are quite vivid to us but if we could see in the ultraviolet light range we'd see that these are brightly contrasting beacons.

We struggle to tell the difference between male and female garden birds, but to them the UV ranges of light provide a great deal more visual information. The brightness of a great tit's yellow chest and the width of his black belly stripe indicate his worth as a strong mate, whereas the UV reflecting pigmentation in a blackbird male's bill attracts the females.

6. Don't leave them high and dry

How many crackers can you eat without having a drink? Seed-eating birds have very dry meals and need to be able to wash them down.

As water sources freeze over in the winter our birds have to spend even more energy searching for places to have a drink and give themselves a preen. By making your garden a bathing site you'll be encouraging birds to see your patch as a one-stop shop for their daily ablutions.

Find out more on how to provide water for birds on Breathing Places.

7. Feeder hygiene saves lives

Recent years have seen severe declines in our finch numbers as a result of the spread of a fatal infection known as trichomonosis. Over the last six winters the number of greenfinches visiting feeders has halved.

Greenfinches are the hardest hit but other finches and house sparrows can also be affected. By the time an ill bird can be caught it is almost invariably too late to help them, but you can prevent the spread of this disease and others to your garden through some simple hygiene care.

Feeder food levels should be monitored carefully to avoid overfeeding and to ensure the surrounding areas are free from droppings and mouldy food. Washing bird tables and feeders with 5% disinfectant solution and rearranging them regularly can also help to prevent bacteria and parasites from bedding in. Always keep food in a dry and cool environment away from pets or other animals to avoid contamination.

For top tips on precautions to keep your garden birds healthy see the RSPB birdfeeder hygiene pages, or for more information on trichomonosis visit the BTO website.

8. Secret hoarders

Many birds cache food just like other animals do.

Jays are well known for collecting acorns and hiding them away in secret larders as insurance against bad foraging conditions. Nuthatches collect various nuts and wedge them into tree bark or in holes in walls and will even cover secret larders with bark or moss. Magpies, rooks and other crows will hide away carrion.

Coal tits and marsh tits at the bottom of the birdfeeder bully chain are prone to 'bulk buying', sneaking food off bird tables and hiding it before the other birds barge in.

9. Know your nuts and seeds

Every garden is different and the unique structure of your garden will attract some birds but not others. By knowing the right type of food and the right type of feeder to support your local birds you'll be providing the perfect feeding ground for your visitors.

In spring live, protein-rich food such as mealworms will be a godsend for busy parents deperately foraging to support their growing chicks. Robins and thrushes love these wriggly treats and live or soaked feed is best to give them the moisture they need.

In the colder months everyone's busy fattening up to survive the winter so fat balls and and windfalls will be popular additions to your feeding stations. Only make these in the winter though as warmer temperatures will melt the fat causing it to go off.

Sunflower seeds, although rich in proteins and unsaturated fats, require effort to remove the husks; energy that your garden birds can't afford to waste. Put out sunflower hearts or kibbled seeds in autumn to save them the effort. Nyjer (niger) seeds are a favourite for goldfinches and siskins whereas peanuts are favoured by all manner of birds, especially tits and nuthatches. Don't put out whole peanuts in the spring though as they may choke young birds.

You can buy many kinds of food in mesh bags but never put them out for the birds in these as they may get their claw caught in the mesh. More advice on feeding birds from Breathing Places.

Check out our bird feeding guide for more information.

10. Those sweet songs of war

The melodious sounds filling your garden in the autumn might seem beautiful but they are often part of territorial displays.

Autumn's a tricky time for birds as food becomes scarcer and territorial tantrums are rife. There are new kids on the block as the fledglings of the spring have matured to adulthood and everyone wants a piece of the action on your bird feeders.

The robin on a spade seems like a wildlife gardener's best friend but he's actually choosing his perch to survey his territory while pumping up that red breast as a warning to other birds.

Singing loud and long, especially during the dawn chorus, lets other birds know, "I'm still here and this patch is mine."