Ways to help garden birds in dry weather

Whilst most of us might be enjoying the current and prolonged spell of unseasonably dry and settled weather, it isn’t so good for the birds in our gardens. This is because they’re now fully into their breeding season, with most either feeding chicks in the nest or young after they’ve fledged. But very dry weather at this time of year creates garden birds with a problem, because the food they need for themselves and their young is harder to find.

The lack of rain also means a lack of drinking and bathing water for birds, with many in more urban areas often relying on a simple puddle to drink from and bathe in. But there’s plenty we can all do to help our garden birds get through the current dry spell, so these are our top pieces of advice:

The main food that most garden birds need at this time of year is invertebrates, including caterpillars, flying insects, earthworms and snails. Even species like House sparrow that feed on seeds for much of the year, will partly switch to invertebrates during the breeding season because the protein and moisture they contain is what their chicks need to grow and survive. Prolonged dry weather can make some of this food much harder to find, with earthworms, for example, staying well below ground surface and therefore not being accessible to species like Blackbird and Robin.

Providing live mealworms or waxworms is absolutely the best thing to do, and even if you only purchase a relatively small quantity, the benefit to your garden birds will be huge because both are packed with protein and have a very high moisture content – which the young in the nest need to stop them becoming dehydrated.
Buy live mealworms and waxworms here

Dried mealworms are a rather poor alternative to live, but if they are used then it’s essential they’re firstly soaked in cold water for a few hours before putting them out. Sultanas are another food which are good for some species such as Blackbird and Starling, but again it’s essential they’re firstly soaked in water.

Access to clean water can literally be a life saver for birds when there’s no natural source of water close-by, but dirty water in bird baths is a real hazard as it can cause and spread disease in birds. So keep the bird bath clean and full with fresh water throughout the day. The other thing you can do is add a further source of clean water in your garden, which can be any sort of shallow dish or tray – e.g. the sort that goes under a plant pot.
Read more about providing water and how to keep bird baths clean

If you have House martins or Swallows or they’re close-by at a neighbouring property, then you can help their nest-building efforts by providing a tray of wet mud – which is what both species use as their main material. Both species tend to breed a little later than many of our resident garden birds, so there’s still time to help them.

Thinking more medium and long-term, the change we now see in our weather patterns which has resulted in more extremes of dry and wet conditions at different times of the year, can be a prompt for us to consider the sort of gardens we have. Many people have already switched to wildlife-focused gardens, with the benefit being that birds and other wildlife are far better able to withstand extremes of weather. So we would urge anyone who’s yet to make the change, to research more and put a plan into action – even if it’s just a corner of a garden which has wildlife totally in mind. Read more about how to create a wildlife garden.