Birds that have enjoyed a mild autumn will begin to struggle as the temperature changes.

If you like to look out for the birds in your garden over winter, there are three main things you can do to help:

Feed: Make sure they have a regular supply of food when the pickings are thin either by buying or making fat balls containing lard and suet, this is essential instant energy when they need it most.

Water: Keep some water unfrozen, as it may be hard for them to find a supply when there has been a frost.

Floating a small ball, like a ping-pong ball on the surface of the water will keep your water ice-free as the breeze will keep it moving around.

Provide shelter: in the form of hedging – privet, hawthorn, ivy or holly are all great cover for birds.

Or you could put up a nesting box. The British Trust for Ornithology advised sparrows have declined by 68 per cent since 1977 London seeing 72 per cent fall, they think it’s due to people making home improvements and closing up gaps to save energy and heat that sparrows would normally nest in.

I can’t really advise you not to do this but you can pop up a bird box with an 32mm entrance hole which could then be used by our feathered friends to nest in.

Berry good

Providing an invaluable source of vitamin C and of course keeping you in supply of Cassis…order and plant bare rooted blackcurrant bushes now.

Tolerating a wide range of soils but preferring well-drained in full sun they can also be grown in containers if you are short on space. Try ‘Ben Connan’ Ribes nigrum for heavy crops of large glossy black fruit with superb flavour harvesting from beginning of July.

Or for a redcurrant ‘Rovada’ Ribes rubrum for a profusion of luscious red fruits sometimes up to 6lbs over a long cropping season.