If the garden birds bring you joy you probably already feed them regularly. A seed feeder full of Richard’s Premium Bird Food is a magnet for the birds. But what about the birds that can’t, won’t or don’t visit your bird feeders??
Different birds have different dietary needs, different shaped beaks and different ways of feeding. They can’t all cling delicately from feeders. Some are too big, some are too heavy and some have the wrong shaped feet and claws.
Ground-feeding birds are free garden ‘pest’ control. They eat natural food, mostly insects. They forage around our gardens and beyond at ground level, searching for protein rich food. And, like all of our wildlife, ground-feeding birds need our support. Crumble some suet balls away from predators and scatter a little bird food for your ground-feeding birds to find.
Here are five ground feeding birds to look out for in your garden.
Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
Starlings are spectacular, they are like the pearly kings and queens of bird world. They tend to descend on a source of food en-masse which can be a little intimidating to some of our smaller garden birds. Starlings move in gangs dressed in shimmering metallic dark feathered suits with harlequin sequin-like patterns. These chattery birds once swamped our bird tables and gardens as soon as food was put out. Chat to mature bird lovers and starlings are really not up there in the favourite stakes, but sadly these enigmatic birds are in steep decline. These are the wild birds that form the mesmerising murmurations creating moving shapes and clouds of thousands of starlings at dusk. It’s a magical experience and one for your bucket list. Starlings will visit our bird feeders, but they are naturally ground feeders and will devour all sorts of insects, including the leatherjacket grubs that can eat your grass roots, beneath the garden lawns.
Blackbird (Turdus merula)
The funny thing about blackbirds is that it is only the male that is black, the female is a softer brown colour and often more resembles a thrush (they are closely related). The male has a striking amber yellow beak and the female has a brown, less colourful beak. Blackbirds are common garden visitors feeding on the insects and worms that we excavate when gardening. They also eat the caterpillars that we love to hate and they forage for fallen fruit and berries around the garden. You may hear them scuffling through the leaves before you see them.
Blackbirds nest in our garden hedges often close the ground, the eggs are a soft blue colour. Blackbirds may raise two or three broods of chicks in a season. Listen out for the rich, dreamy call of the male blackbird, and the alarm call of these fascinating birds as you approach. Scatter mealworms for these birds and grow plants to attract egg laying butterflies and moths for the resulting caterpillars!
Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos)
There are several garden birds in the thrush family, including the rare and endangered mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus) and the slightly more common song thrush.
Song thrushes visit our gardens. They are often looking for snails. You know the ones, those little shelled molluscs that eat our plants. Snails are bird food for many creatures but especially for song thrushes. They pick the snails up and bash them on a rock. Sometimes you can find the actual anvil that the thrushes have chosen as their snail smashing stone. Other times you might find the broken snail shells, which add calcium into the food chain and that helps to strengthen the shells of other birds eggs.
The song thrush has a spotted chest of warm brown blotches on a creamy background and a soft taupe brown back. Listen for its beautiful song, with repeating patterns.
Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba)
Of the three wagtail species you might see in the UK, it’s the little pied wagtail that is more common in our gardens. You can’t miss the idiosyncratic tail wagging action of these inquisitive little birds. They also bob their heads like a bobblehead toy.
Wagtails hop about in our gardens moving pretty fast over lawns and paths and driveways seeking out insects, as well as seeds, as they go. But they are also common in wetlands and along river and stream banks where their insect food is also commonly found.
The pied wagtail has a white face and belly, and black and grey wing markings. If you see any yellow feathers then it is more likely to be one of the other UK wagtail species. Listen out for a high pitch, abrupt call, as they fly.
Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)
If you spot a green woodpecker digging up your lawn don’t be alarmed. It is simply eating the ants, ant larvae and ant eggs that nest in and around our gardens. Green Woodpeckers have long tongues that probe into the ground to extract the ants. Their tongue is so long that when it’s not in use it is curled up inside its skull.
Green woodpeckers can also forage for grubs and bugs inside soft decaying wood, when they literally drill with their beaks to reach their next meal deep inside the timber. They will also eat seeds and pine nuts in winter when ants are in short supply. Green Woodpeckers don’t tend to make the loud drilling noise that other woodpeckers make because their beaks are weaker.
They raise one brood of about five chicks each season and if successful they will teach the chicks how to hunt for ants on your lawn. So, if you have ants in your garden, live and let live because ants are natural food for insect eating birds.
