What Gift Can I Give A Bird Lover This Christmas?

Choosing gifts for any animal lovers can be quite a pleasure, as
it is often a gift that is shared by the recipient with her
animal friends or pets. This is especially so with bird lover
gifts. People who really love birds tend to want them to enhance
their gardens, to encourage real wild birds to visit time and
again, or even stay for the breeding season.
A gift for a bird lover can therefore be a gift of life, a
promotion of nature around the home, visible from the windows or
while tending the garden. Encouraging wild birds to their
gardens is something that millions do in the northern
hemisphere, especially in the winter when many wild birds suffer
from food shortages.
At Christmas, cards are commonly adorned by robins, their red
breasts contrasting so vividly with the white snow. But that
pretty picture can be deceiving, with the harshness of winter
depriving the robin and other resident birds of the sustenance
and warmth they need to survive until spring. It is that threat
that brings out the best in bird lovers through those winter
months.
It is not just winter, though, that encourages true bird lovers
to think about the birds. In the summer, too, many Americans and
Britons have taken to encouraging birds to nest in their gardens
or on their homes.
What Gifts Can You Choose For A Bird Lover?
Christmas comes as the coldest of winter approaches, so if you
know someone who cares for the wild birds, it can be a good time
to buy a bird gift that will help them with their feeding of the
birds in their garden. This will not only help the regular bird
visitors to their garden, but encourage new visitors too.
Sometimes in the worst winters, some rarer birds may give lots
of pleasure and excitement to the garden's owner as they come
seeking food and shelter.
If you are not a bird lover yourself, and are not sure of the
sort of things you can buy as a gift, here are a few ideas for
you:
Bird Feeders
Bird feeders can be the winter saviour for many birds in a cold
winter. This is especially true with small birds, who have to
eat continually from dawn to dusk to survive the night. Those
nuts that are put out in a simple nut feeder could save those
birds lives on many a night when there is frost and snow around.
The variety of bird feeders is very wide nowadays. Window
feeders have been around a long time, but they too have grown in
the variety available since the first plastic versions appeared
a few decades ago. In more recent years, some very decorative,
and attractive feeders have been created, and there is a wide
choice of these available now as gifts for your bird lover
friends and relatives.
Remember also that you can get feeders that are for particular
species of bird. You will find feeders for bluebirds,
hummingbirds, orioles and other beautiful birds.
Should you decide to buy a bird feeder as a Christmas gift, it
may be a nice touch too if you added a supply of an appropriate
bird food. That could mean the happy bird lover setting the
feeder up Christmas morning, and having some very special
feathered visitors for Christmas lunch. And I’m not talking
about the turkey!
Bird Houses or Nest Boxes
If you want to brighten up Christmas by looking ahead to spring,
then you will find another range of bird lover gifts with bird
houses, or nest boxes as they are more commonly called in the
UK. While bird houses may not be used until spring and summer
for nesting, there are two good reasons for setting them up
early.
Firstly, some birds will use them as shelter in bad weather, so
again, this is a gift that could be a life saver. Secondly,
house prospecting amongst birds can go on long before nesting.
If the bird house goes up in December, you can bet that this new
piece of prime real estate will be eyed by many a bird passing
through the garden or by the house.
Bird houses make for quite an exciting gift for bird lovers, as
the gift will bring lots of pleasures once the first birds use
it for nesting. It is also a great way to teach children about
birds as they watch the parents building the nest, the laying of
the eggs, the hatching of the nestlings, and then the feeding of
the young before their departure. A real pleasure for bird
lovers young and old alike.