FEATURE


By then hawthorn berries will be abundant. This is another free harvest that can last for months if you remove the berries from the branches and freeze them. They will last for a year in the freezer, until the next crop is ripe. In winter chickweed is often available if


the weather is wet, but my conures are not particularly fond of it. There is nothing else from the wild so the berries in the freezer and the dried dock in the shed come into their own. However, from the end of September until February the favourite fruit of every


parrot I have ever known becomes available: Spanish pomegranates! Just cut the fruit into about eight pieces and watch your birds relish them! (If they are not Spanish pomegranates they are likely to be ignored.) So, to recap, favourite and free autumn


foods of Pyrrhuras and other parakeets are hawthorn and elder berries (some parakeets will also eat the berries of cotoneaster and pyracantha), dock and late-seeding grasses and a few late- flowering dandelion and sowthistle flowers. Make sure your birds partake of this annual feast!


© Rosemary Low


Hawthorn berries from three different trees.


BIRD SCENE 09 25 23


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