The Wildlife Garden

This winter, I have become a fan of fat. No, I have not started fantasising about cream cakes, nor do I stuff myself with huge amounts of chips - well, not every mealtime, but I have taken to hanging out fat in my garden. Now this might not seem a very revolutionary idea, as animal fat has long been acknowledged to be a vital, energy-rich food with which to feed wild birds and I am sure many gardeners and bird lovers have been doing this for years. However, being a vegetarian for a good 25 years, I have been somewhat reluctant to bring animal fats into the house, let alone prepare my own animal fat mixes for the birds.

A couple of years ago I did try a vegetarian alternative - melting margarine and mixing it with small pieces of bread. Once solidified, it was duly hung in my apple tree and the birds seemed quite keen on it. Unfortunately, as the weather turned warmer, the margarine liquefied and dribbled downwards, liberally coating the bulbs below in a lurid yellow and exceedingly sticky mess. If any fat deserves to be called 'dripping', this must surely be it.

So then I tried a more solid alternative - vegetarian suet, scattering the white pellets on the ground amongst scraps of bread. Again, the birds ate it quite happily, but as the temperature rose during the day, the suet would melt all too readily, this time covering the lawn with a glue-like slick.

After these two disasters, I turned the following year to shredded beef suet. Could this be the answer?
It was an instant success with the birds, eagerly devoured by robins and starlings alike, even the blue tits would come down and eat the small pieces lying on the ground. Over the winter months I used it on a daily basis. The starlings in particular were so keen on this gourmet food that if I was late putting it out, they would frantically search around looking for it, puncturing the lawn with their sharp beaks.

Unfortunately, whether it was due to the endless trampling by birds' feet, heavy rain or that perennial problem I seemed to be having with the fat - melting, my lawn ended up with a coating of congealed fat which quickly turned rancid. This also had another novel feature not exhibited by the vegetarian alternatives: it killed the turf.

Last spring, I had to scrape the smelly layer of fat off the lawn and re-sow it - much to the delight of the sparrows, which assumed the grass seed had been scattered purely for their benefit.

Not particularly wanting to use beef suet as a herbicide, last September I looked for another method of putting out fat in my garden. In a bird-food catalogue, amongst the photographs of siskins and hordes of blue tits winkling out seeds from enormous food containers, I noticed a section on fat holders. I duly sent off for a selection of these and within a few days, as the first frosts of autumn turned the lime tree leaves a beautiful golden colour, I hung out my first one - a terracotta bell stuffed full of suet and seeds.

The following morning an inquisitive starling investigated it, failed to get a foothold on the smooth surface of the bell and abandoned any hope of getting to the fat inside. Even blue tits found the edge of the bell difficult to hang onto and couldn't reach the fat. The outcome of all this futile avian gymnastics was that several months later, only a few beakfulls of fat had been taken. A modification was called for: I pushed a small, clean stick into the centre of the fat and lo and behold, the blue tits were able to use it as a perch and finally get to the food. Much more useful as a feeder was half a coconut filled with a suet and seed mixture. This was successful simply because it could be hung on its side, thereby giving the birds easy access. Inside a week there was nothing left but the empty husk.

By late winter, the birds had started to associate coconut shells with food, so when I hung out a large cylinder of fat (known as a 'fat cake'), they initially ignored it. Gingerly, first one starling stood on top of it and pecked at the unknown white substance, then another and another and after only a few days, starlings were clinging onto every available surface. Within a week the cake had disappeared. These cakes are available in all sorts of 'flavours', for instance with or without seeds, while some even have insects added to attract blackcaps, but the starlings didn't seem to care, the fat simply disappeared down their gullets, insects, seeds and all.

There are holders which prevent starlings getting to the food and in doing so, give smaller birds a monopoly, but I have never been keen on the idea of feeders which force birds to enter a cage to reach their food. If disturbed in any way, birds inside the holder could panic and injure themselves as they try to leave. I think it is far better to let the starlings have access; at least the fat doesn't linger and then go 'off'.

I was particularly impressed with a narrow box-like feeder made from wire mesh. The mesh spacing is wide enough apart to allow birds to perch on it and peck at the fat, but too narrow for them to get inside. What is especially useful about this type of holder is that birds of different sizes can get to the fat from all sorts of angles. The starlings of course would try to commandeer the holder, taking it in bad-natured turns to get beakfulls of fat and convince other diners that they should leave as soon as possible, rather like the management of a fast-food restaurant.

Goldcrests would search for scraps left behind on the apple tree branches where the starlings had cleaned their sticky beaks on the rough bark, whilst long-tailed tits would dangle athletically on the opposite side of the holder to the squabbling starlings. Coal tits, great tits, robins and even great spotted woodpeckers all came down regularly to the feeder. The fat 'slabs' suitable for these holders also come in a variety of recipes, everything from beef suet mixed with peanut flour, to ones which have fruit or seeds added. In my experience, the various mixtures seem to make very little difference; they all disappear rapidly.

Unfortunately, all this avian enthusiasm for fat was starting to get just a tad expensive; even the smallest 'slab' of prepared fat is priced somewhere in the region of £2 and a large kilogram fat cake costs around five times as much. Couldn't I simply make my own 'cakes' to go into the holder?

My grand scheme was quickly vetoed by my partner, also a vegetarian. Boil up lard or dripping in my pans? Not likely. I decided to borrow a pan from my father, someone who has no vegetarian inclinations whatsoever and with the kitchen extractor fan on full, I ventured into the world of cooking with animal fats. Making my own fat cakes turned out to be remarkably easy. Lard or dripping was melted and peanut flour (ground up peanuts) added to it, along with sunflower hearts and other hull-less seeds. This was mixed together, allowed to cool for a short time, poured into moulds and left to set. Lard-based cakes are softer and more readily cut than beef dripping-based ones and are also easier to fit into the holder, but whether they were made from lard or dripping, the birds loved them both.

I am, even in my own small way, helping Britain's hard pressed livestock farmers and I wonder how many vegetarians can say that?

Jack Daw

Nature under threat

Pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, rodenticides - it is an ecological suicide that is devastating Britain's wildlife. The madness and folly of the Common Agricultural Policy adds to unsustainable development, land-take for quarries, roads and urbanisation as well as the polluting of earth, water and air. It is no wonder that British wildlife has been taken over by a disaster that is unparalleled in human history. Scientists note that worldwide the rate of extinctions is now faster than at any time in earth's history; faster even than the extinction episode (probably caused by an asteroid impact) that ended the rein of the dinosaurs.

In Britain, the abundant is becoming only common - witness the recent demise of thehumble house sparrow in SE England; whilst the common becomes rare. Once abundant and beautiful agricultural weeds, such as corncockle, have been removed almost entirely from the British scene. The iconic sound of the British countryside - the midnight churring of the cornrake - has now been reduced to just one England pair.

But it is not too late. Springtime in the ancient woods of Sheffield is still an orchestral delight of birdsong; our shores still hold vast populations of wintering waders and geese, whilst the heather moors are broadly intact. The fight to retain what is left and reverse the relentless decline of Britain's wildlife is in full swing with the Wildlife Trusts and RSPB having more members than all the political parties put together.

In Sheffield, the local Wildlife Trust is operating across a broad front reflecting the incredible diversity of greenspace in and around the city from inner-city wastelands to upland moor. With nine new nature reserves, including the much loved Blackamoor and Wyming Brook, a quality of life regeneration inner-city agenda, environmental education programmes across the city, Sheffield Wildlife Trust is making the difference.

As part of a network of 46 Trusts, SWT fits into the biggest environmental charity concerned with all aspects of wildlife conservation taking grassroots action from the Orkneys to Land's End. Therein lies the strength of the Wildlife Trusts - local action sensitive to local needs but combining to form a massive force for nature conservation across the country.

Dr Rob Stoneman
Director, Sheffield Wildlife Trust

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