feeding the birds – Debbie Young's Writing Life

This post first appeared in the July/August issue of the Tetbury Advertiser

Cover of July/August issue of the Tetbury Advertiser “Only in the Cotswolds!” commented a friend when one Monday morning I posted on Facebook a photo of what I’d just put out in my garden to feed the birds: green olive focaccia and grissini. (And yes, before there are letters to the editor, I did soak it in water first, so as not to dehydrate the birds.) I thought the birds might appreciate dinner-party leftovers as a change from my daughter’s school lunchbox leavings.

Even more Cotswold would be a selection of Hobbs House bread and some trimmings from Tetbury’s House of Cheese, all drenched in elderflower pressé and served up on a wooden trencher hand-carved from a piece of Westonbirt Arboretum wood.

I should probably also have served it in an elegant little Boden dress, covered with a Cath Kidston pinny. I failed on both counts, despite my predilection for the latter’s handbags. And sadly none of it had been nowhere near a middle-aged man wearing oxblood corduroy trousers.

Back to Basics

In fact what my friend took to be a gourmet treat for my little feathered friends was more slummy than yummy. The olive focaccia being reduced for quick sale before loitering in my freezer for a few weeks. The grissini was not the rustic hand-rolled type, but straight white mass-produced batons, bought for a young visitor who eats only bread that looks as if it’s gone a few rounds with a bottle of bleach.

But I’ve come to realise that gourmet cooking is in the eye of the beholder. In a supermarket recently, I overheard a lady saying proudly to her friend “I cooked porridge from scratch the other day”. Er, water, oats, oats, water – there’s only so much that you can do with that. Her claim struck me as not far removed from saying “I prepared a banana from scratch” when all she’d done was peel it. But in a world in which you can buy frozen baked potatoes and frozen scrambled eggs, perhaps I should not be surprised.

Fly-by-Nights?

Fortunately my garden birds are not foodies, and they’re not much bothered by sell-by dates. (Don’t worry, letter writers, I never leave mouldy food out either.) But I was a little puzzled that most of the food put down after my daughter got home from school, still there when I went to bed, would entirely disappear by the time I opened the curtains at breakfast time, without me ever seeing a single bird tucking in.

Another social media friend came up with the answer: “If the birds don’t get it, the rats will.”

To be on the safe side, I’ve now changed feeding time in my garden, so that I’m up in time to see who’s coming to Garden Café Young. If the dawn chorus want a snack before I’m up and about, they can jolly well catch the proverbial worm. Even so, I have to say this morning when I put out their daily rations, I have never been so glad to see a blackbird.

image of covers of first three books in the Sophie Sayers series — My series of village mystery novels is inspired by my daily life in the Cotswolds – just click on the image to find out more about them

One of my New Year’s Resolutions has morphed into a New Year’s Revelation – that feeding the birds is an excellent aid to losing weight.

No sooner do I start chucking stale bread crumbs outside the back door at breakfast time than a few blackbirds, thrushes and robins arrive to peck them up. They hop cheerfully about the patio, jerking their heads this way and that, while I admire their beautiful, subtle markings. Give me the gorgeous tawny speckles of a song thrush any day over a peacock’s gaudy markings – though one of those occasionally visits the village too.

Debbie Young - toddler's tea party — "Eat your crusts or your hair won't curl". I can only conclude that I was force-fed an awful lot of crusts.

Intelligence of my new cafe travels fast on the avian grapevine. Gratified by the birds’ speedy response, I decide to bump up their rations. Here is the excuse I need to cut the crusts off my morning toast. I’ve been averse to crusts since childhood, when I was implored to eat them to avoid waste. (The nice man next door who gave me tiny pencils filched from the betting shop, also told me to eat my eggshells or my hair wouldn’t curl. I had natural ringlets like Shirley Temple’s.)

The toast crusts quickly disappear, once soaked in water, as per the RSPB‘s advice to stop them swelling up post-meal in the bird’s tiny tummies. On consulting the bird feeding book (a Christmas present to myself to inform my new hobby), I discover that blackbirds and thrushes like chopped apples. Out go the yellowing contents of the fruit basket. Ends of cake and the remains of a packet of mini doughnuts are added over the next few days. Far better to boost the birds’ calorific intake than mine.

Cooking bacon for breakfast at the weekend, I instruct the family to cut every last sliver of fat from each rasher. This source of high energy helps birds survive cold weather. In my cosy hide behind the forest of pot plants on the utility room windowsill, I am rewarded by close-up views of nut-brown speckled songthrushes tucking into a fatty brunch.

By lunchtime, the patio is bare, so I scout around for a top-up and alight on the Christmas cake. Plenty of plump dried fruit in there to boost a chilly bird’s body temperature.

When my daughter starts back to school, my attitude to her lunchbox is transformed. I used to dread opening it on her return home to find half of it untouched, destined only for the compost bin. (She eats like a bird herself – a very chatty parrot, too busy talking to her friends to make time to finish her lunch.) Now I make a beeline for her lunchbox every day after school, viewing it as a welcome source of afternoon tea for my feathered friends.

No meal is unaffected by my new garden diners. Having been brought up to clear my plate, I’m now keen to leave a bit of rice here, a handful of of pasta there, to make sure there’s something hearty on the patio, ready for when the birds descend at dawn. And as I seek out high energy snacks for the birds, I’m gladly and painlessly pruning my own consumption of carbs and fat.

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag - Mary Poppins image — The bird lady from the Mary Poppins film

So there we have it. Janet’s Theory strikes again: if you want to get something done, do something else. Feed the birds and you’ll lose weight. And you don’t even have to pay tuppence a bag.

Further proof of Janet’s Theory:

It’s So Last Century Janet’s Theory Strikes Again