According to a 1995 survey, 7 out of 10 British dogs get Christmas gifts from their doting owners. Christmas cards often show robins delivering mail because in Victorian England postmen were called robins, because their uniforms and postboxes were red. Not so that people could spot pillarboxes from a distance easily, but because they wanted a Royal colour for the Royal Mail!

	Feed the birds
	Winter is a great time to observe animals. Often foxes and birds (and more usually domestic cats and dogs) leave footprints in the snow. Winter is also when food is scarce and birds appreciate a bit of help!
	A bird table is just a plank of wood resting on a pole. You can buy bird feed quite cheaply but old crusts and bacon rind are fine too. If you want to make a ‘bird cake’ to really treat them, we found a good recipe at: www.wantage.com
	The best place for bird feeders is near to a bush, so that little birds can dart in if a predator (such as next-door’s cat) pays a visit.
	Remember: If you do start putting out food for them, birds may start to depend on you. So if you start bird feeder, keep it going thoughout the winter months. You can gradually reduce the amount of food in Spring - but don’t just stop suddenly.
	Birds need to drink, even in mid winter when every puddle and pond is frozen. You can help by putting out a shallow bowl or saucer of warm (not hot) water during the day.
	No garden? No problem, you can still maintain a feeder for birds easily on a windowsill or buy a feeder with suckers that attach to the outside of a window.
	Once you have attracted the birds to your space (be it garden, playground or windowsill), you can start to try to identify them, and count how many you get at certain times all day (don’t count how many you get all day or you’ll go mad!). You can even set up an experiment of homemade bird feed against bought bird feed. Which one’s the most popular?
	to help to identify birds:
	http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/birds/
	http://www.the-soc.fsnet.co.uk/
	http://members.aol.com/welshos/cac/
	http://www.rspb.org.uk/