Winter garden birds to spot from your window (and how to feed them safely)

When the trees are bare and it's too cold to stay out for long, the window becomes the best bird hide in the house. Winter garden birds are easier to watch now than at any other time of year: there are no leaves to hide behind, and hungry birds come close for food. This guide gives you the birds most likely to turn up, one tell-tale clue to name each, and how to feed them safely.

Why is winter a good time to start birdwatching?

• Bare branches. A bird that would vanish into summer leaves sits in plain view.
• Birds come to you. Natural food is harder to find, so feeders and berry bushes are busy.
• Visitors arrive. Some birds travel from colder places to spend the winter with you.
• Short days. Birds feed hard from first light, so a few minutes at breakfast is often the best time to look.

All you need is a window, a notebook and a bit of patience. Binoculars help, but they aren't essential.

Which winter birds might you see?

Pick one clue per bird and look for that first. Most birds can be named from one good clue.

Bird	The clue to look for
Robin	Orange-red face and breast. Often the first bird to arrive in the morning, and it sings all winter long.
Blue tit	A small bird with a bright blue cap and yellow belly, often hanging upside down on a feeder.
Great tit	Bigger than a blue tit, with a black head, white cheeks and a black stripe down its yellow chest.
Blackbird	The male is all black with an orange-yellow beak. The female is brown. Both flick through fallen leaves.
Goldfinch	A red face and a bright gold stripe on each wing that flashes when it flies.
Long-tailed tit	A tiny pink, black and white ball with a tail longer than its body. They travel in chattering little flocks.
House sparrow	The male has a grey cap and a black bib. They live in noisy gangs in hedges.
Starling	In winter its glossy dark feathers are covered in white spots, like stars. It walks rather than hops.
Wren	A tiny round brown bird with its tail cocked straight up. Very loud for its size.
Chaffinch	The male has a pinky-orange breast, a blue-grey cap and a flash of white on each wing. Often feeds on the ground.
Redwing and fieldfare	Winter visitors, mainly from Scandinavia. The redwing has a cream stripe over its eye and a rusty-red patch under its wing. The fieldfare is bigger, with a grey head and a loud "chack-chack" call. Look for them eating berries or fallen apples in cold snaps.

How do you tell birds apart?

If a bird isn't on the list, try these four questions before reaching for a book or app:

1. How big is it? Smaller than a sparrow, about the same, or pigeon-sized?
2. What shape is it? Chunky or slim? Long tail or short? Thick seed-cracking beak or thin insect-picking one?
3. Where are the colours? A cap, a bib, a wing stripe, a patch under the tail.
4. What is it doing? Hopping or walking? Hanging upside down? Climbing up a trunk, or down?

Write your answers down or make a quick sketch, even if you can't name the bird yet. Naturalists call these field notes, and they're how every expert started.

How do you feed winter birds safely?

Feeding birds in winter can really help them, but a busy feeder can also spread disease. These are the current tips from the big bird charities.

• Keep it clean. The RSPB says to clean feeders and bird baths at least once a week with hot soapy water, then a mild disinfectant, and to move feeders to a new spot now and then. A grown-up should do the disinfecting part.
• Skip the bird table. The RSPB now advises against flat bird tables, where food and droppings build up.
• Good food: sunflower hearts, seed mixes, and fat balls or suet in a proper feeder.
• Peanuts only in a rigid metal mesh feeder, so birds can't swallow big chunks, and never salted.
• No nylon mesh bags. Fat balls are often sold in them, but birds' feet can get caught. Take the bag off first.
• No bread. It fills birds up without giving them what they need.
• Pause in summer. The RSPB now suggests stopping seeds and peanuts from 1 May to 31 October, when disease spreads more easily and wild food is plentiful.
• Sick birds? If you see a bird that's fluffed up, sleepy or struggling to swallow, stop feeding for a week or two so the birds spread out, and clean everything.

Water matters too. Birds need to drink and bathe even in freezing weather. Put out a shallow dish of fresh water and change it every day. On frosty nights, float a ping-pong ball on it so the breeze keeps the surface moving, or top it up with warm (not boiling) water. Never add salt or antifreeze.

Think about windows. Put feeders either very close to a window, within about 1 metre (3 feet), or well away from it, more than about 10 metres (30 feet). Close up, a bird can't build enough speed to hurt itself if it hits the glass.

Wash your hands after filling or cleaning feeders.

How can you make winter birdwatching a game?

• Keep a window list. Tape a sheet of paper by the window and add every new bird with the date. How many can you get by spring?
• Count the most at once. Birdwatchers count the biggest number of each kind seen together, not every visit, so they don't count the same bird twice.
• Draw one bird a week. You'll notice things you never saw before, like the star-like spots on a starling in winter.
• Join a real count. The RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch usually runs over the last weekend of January. You watch for one hour and send in what you see, and your numbers help scientists track how garden birds are doing.

A warm window, a cold morning

Winter birdwatching is about noticing: the same few birds, day after day, until you know who's the bossiest at the feeder and who always arrives last. Start with one bird you can already name, then add one more. By the time the first spring songs start, you'll have a whole cast of neighbours you know by sight.

Sources

• RSPB: Bird feeding advice: feed seasonally and safely
• RSPB: How and what to feed your garden birds
• Garden Wildlife Health: Trichomonosis in garden birds
• Audubon: How to feed birds safely this winter
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds: Where to put your bird feeder
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds: American goldfinch and Downy woodpecker
• BTO: Redwing and Fieldfare
• RSPB: Big Garden Birdwatch
• Great Backyard Bird Count: birdcount.org