As the cold weather temporarily releases its grip, so the weathermen are forecasting another blast of snow and ice; and we in the midlands are threatened with the worst of it. Needless to say the garden birds are eating whatever is put out for them as if food were going out of fashion. I have been musing on how they find water to drink when everything around them is frozen rock hard.
I cannot say if I have ever seen them drink from the fallen snow, but I am sure they must do. Of one thing I am certain, having paid close attention to their behaviour over the recent cold spell, and that is they sip water from the twigs and branches that they perch on. If it is sunny and the daytime temperature is hovering around freezing point it appears there is a very slight thaw, enough to release droplets for them to manage a drink. I have watched the tits, and finches like chaffinch, and also a group of starlings drinking from my lime tree. The former seem to pick off individual droplets, whilst the starlings take a sideswipe along a twig. (I am pretty certain this is not the normal bill wiping behaviour designed to clean the bill, although it may have arisen in this way).
Likewise the slightest sign of a thaw on the patio released enough liquid for them to quench their thirst. The garden bird and bird table books rightly stress the importance of providing birds with enough to drink, but in these conditions I think it is equally if not more important that they have water to bathe, and to maintain their plumage in first-class condition. Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to add antifreeze to their water. Their feathers become clogged up, and to drink from it may poison them.
Temperatures around here plummeted down to –7 or –8 degrees Celsius overnight. How do tiny birds like wrens, goldcrests and long-tailed tits manage to survive. One answer is that they go in for clumping tightly together. Massing in this way they effectively become one larger body, for once a ‘corporate body’ in a very meaningful sense. Ornithologists have discovered that tiny birds can lose up to a fifth of their body weight overnight just to stay warm. I don’t know about you, but I would survive only a matter of minutes exposed in such conditions.
Predictably the Copenhagen climate change conference has ended in utter failure. Despite the major nations declaring success the only ones to triumph are big business and commerce, and the politicians. But make no mistake, if we carry on in the way we are, we will all pay the price in the long run. So-called Homo sapiens, the wise man, will go down in history as the only species to deliberately foul his own environment. Fortunately some very encouraging ideas are coming from developing countries, who not surprisingly have most to lose if we continue down the present path. My own assessment is, as it has always been. Any worthwhile and workable solutions will come from ordinary folk, from the grassroots you might say, wherever they happen to be.