Help birds survive the winter with five cost-cutting tips that’ll also help your garden

SEED all about it – help birds survive the winter and your garden will benefit too.

At this time of year, our feathered friends require high-energy foods to survive the cold.

Here’s how to help them without sky-high spending . . . 

GO PRO: Want to spruce up the garden while feeding the birds?

Try the Nature’s Market premium wooden bird table with built-in feeder, down from £39.99, to £19.99 at Robert Dyas.

Or go a step further with the Chapelwood complete dining bird feed station, reduced from £47.99 to £19.99, also at Robert Dyas.

BOTTLE IT: Make your own cheap bird feeders by saving clean plastic water bottles and piercing them with holes.

Fill the bottles with feed and hang from a tree.

Or pierce  an old, shallow food storage tub with string, add bird feed and hang from a tree. Remember to rinse regularly to stop birds getting sick.

MASH UP: Use leftover potatoes from your dinner as cheap easy  feed.

Cold and opened baked potatoes and mashed spuds with added real fats (which include olive oil) are all suitable food for birds.

Old pastry flakes and mild grated cheese could also work, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

HAVE A BALL: Lard or suet can help feed birds in winter, but avoid using any roast dinner leftovers as the meat juices mix with the fat and can be harmful. 

Instead, mix lard or suet with bird seed, oats or cake crumbs and then pop into yoghurt pots to set, before turning out and putting on bird tables. Wilko has 2kg of bird seed for £2.50.