A piece on one of the Radio 4 'environment' progs caught my attention a few weeks ago.

Apparently the common garden tit is suffering because of people paving over their gardens, removing trees and shrubs and consequently leaving less of their natural habitat.

The program suggested hanging bird feeders, fat balls and the like in order to encourage tits back into our gardens.  This got me thinking about all those little pots of fat Charlotte has in the kitchen, skimmed from roasts and the like.  I reckoned that a few crushed peanuts (it's not a good idea to make whole peanuts available to birds) mixed in with this surplus fat may make ideal home made fat balls.

Another piece on SpringWatch suggested that human hair (as found in the hairbrush) makes perfect nesting material for garden birds.  I therefore decided, having quite a lot more hair left in my hairbrush these days, to add this to the fat and crushed peanuts.  Add a few other grains and seeds, warm it all up a little, wear some rubber gloves and form it all into balls (about the size of tennis balls).

I then placed these within some of those little netting bags that supermarkets feel is necessary in order to sell Oranges and presto!

There's nothing more satisfying in the morning than seeing those tits around my hairy fat balls.