Making a bird cake

Keep the wildlife in your garden content with a homemade bird cake. Once the bird cake is in place, enjoy watching the different varieties flock to your garden for some tasty treats.

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Things you'll need:

Good quality bird seed; raisins; peanuts; grated cheese; suet or lard; yoghurt pots; string; mixing bowl; scissors.

Step 1

Carefully make a small hole in the bottom of a yoghurt pot. Thread string through the hole and tie a knot on the inside. Leave enough string so that you can tie the pot to a tree or your bird table.

Step 2

Allow the lard to warm up to room temperature, but don't melt it. Then cut it up into small pieces and put it in the mixing bowl.

Step 3

Add the other ingredients to the bowl and mix them together with your finger tips. Keep adding the seed/raisin/cheese mixture and squidging it until the fat holds it all together.

Step 4

Fill your yoghurt pots with bird cake mixture and put them in the fridge to set for an hour or so.

Step 5

Hang your speedy bird cakes from trees or your bird table. Watch for greenfinches, tits and possibly even great spotted woodpeckers. The bird cake recipe above is courtesy of The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. For more information, please visit the RSPB website.