4 ways to help winter birds thrive

Winter is a key time to provide for the birds in your garden, and the team at Bernini Fountains have just released a pretty nifty invention for your garden or balcony. It’s a 4 in 1 bird guest house, for drinking, feeding, bathing and nesting! It’s the Bernini Bird Bathe and Water Feature.

Designed at the special request of the QVC buying team in response to customer demand, this is a perfect first time purchase if you’re looking to help wildlife this winter! Winter can be a hard time for birds in the garden; food sources can often be scarce, water usually frozen and inaccessible, and the hunt for clean, unfrozen places to bathe and nesting materials starts with gusto.

The Bernini Bird Bathe and Water Feature is made from tough, durable, all weather materials, and can be used hanging or free-standing on a flat surface, or indeed amongst a rockery. You have a choice of colours (sage green, taupe or grey). in fact, sage green is one of the most popular colours in the marketplace right now, talk about on trend.

The full set comprises a central fountain (which can be detached from the bowl and used elsewhere), with an inner ring for fresh water. There’s then an outer ring, comprised of 3 compartments, which can be used to place bird food or scraps of nutritious food, or for planting up your favourite flowers, with perhaps a few berry treats for the birds.

Where to hang your Bernini Bird Bathe and Water Feature?

Smaller, shy birds are more likely to visit your feeder if you place it in a sheltered corner, away from any possible predators. Although, I wonder if squirrels would find the globe shape difficult to navigate…? Hmm!

Ideally, make sure there are a few ‘landing shrubs’ nearby, places where birds will ‘queue up’ for their turn on the feeding station! Birds are more polite than you might think! Of course, try and make sure the bird guest house is in view of a window too, so you can enjoy watching all these new birds visiting your garden accommodation!

4 great benefits to the Bernini Bird Bathe and Water Feature:

A water source.

The inner water bath is ideal for providing fresh water to the birds during those cold winter months. They will need to drink, and also bathe in the wet stuff!

Shallow ponds can often get iced up and become inaccessible to thirsty birds. However, the battery-operated inner fountain of the Bernini Bird Bathe and Water Feature recycles it’s own water and, when switched on, ensures continuous movement without icing up. Your birds can drink in a safe environment, and perhaps have a quick wash down too!

A food source.

The outer ring of the Bernini Bird Bathe and Water Feature acts as a planter or feeder. By inserting the hygienic platform, you can create the perfect surface for incorporating bird food of different types, whether that’s the high energy Richard Jackson Bird food mix (which happens to be on special offer this month!) or food scraps from the kitchen.

Winter food is absolutely essential for birds. Bird energy levels are often depleted when it’s cold. The easier you can make that food search the better, as they use lots of energy in their snack hunt. A clear source of food helps birds during that cold period, but also into the spring and summer fledgling stages too.

A planting site.

Of course, a simple bird feeder is attractive, but you can make it look even better with the addition of plants, which can also help shy birds with the confidence to visit the new feeder. A few small flowering or berrying plants can be inserted into the outer ring, just make sure you add a small layer of gravel at the base to aid drainage.

Jazz up the feeder with Pansies, Primroses or even some small berrying plants such as Gaultheria (Eastern Tea Berry). Birds will love to snack on the sparkling red berries of these small plants, and you’ll be giving them another food source too!

A nesting materials station.

Why not use one of the outer ring platform surfaces to place some nesting materials for your birds, and save them the strenuous winter search?

A few twigs and some scraps of moss will be much appreciated by the nesting birds, and it’ll keep them checking in to your ‘bird guest house’ more regularly, that’s for sure!

I hope you tuned in for the launch of the Bernini Bird Bathe and Water Feature on Tuesday 8th January at midnight, and the subsequent Morning Show at 9am the same day. If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry, as Lorna and I have put together a short tour of this fantastic new piece of kit:

Find it online here!