Our avian friends

Several new facts have rocked me back on my heels recently: Alastair Cook garnered more runs at the Gabba in Brisbane than Don Bradman; there are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your brain; more people in this country can recognise Simon Cowell than Pope Benedict; and we spend as much annually on ‘wild bird care’ — £200 million — as we do on peat and potting composts, and rather more than on fertilisers.

Several new facts have rocked me back on my heels recently: Alastair Cook garnered more runs at the Gabba in Brisbane than Don Bradman; there are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your brain; more people in this country can recognise Simon Cowell than Pope Benedict; and we spend as much annually on ‘wild bird care’ — £200 million — as we do on peat and potting composts, and rather more than on fertilisers. I have only (possibly) made up one of these facts and it isn’t the last one.

People who could barely get out of their drives for snowdrifts during December, somehow managed to visit garden centres or pet shops to buy wild-bird food. Cold weather has that effect on us; we will do a great deal to help our avian chums through a period of snow. So says Jane Lawler, marketing director of Gardman, the largest supplier of bird-care products to garden centres, and author of the appealing slogan ‘Bring your garden to life’. She is right to think that we love watching birds animate the garden, fluttering around feeders and bathing in bird baths. And, thanks to vigorous publicity campaigns by bird-food manufacturers, like Gardman, and bird charities, such as the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, we wouldn’t now dream of confining their commons to a few bacon rinds, stale breadcrumbs and half a coconut.