WINTER draws on and with colder days on the way, birds are starting to feel a bit chilly.

Summer nights are already forgotten and as the clocks go back, now's the time to prepare gardens for the dark months ahead and to begin feeding our feathered friends in earnest.

To get everyone in the mood, the RSPB has designated Saturday, October 30, Feed the Birds Day.

The organisation has produced a welter of advice and tips from celebrities like Alan Titchmarsh, Charlie Dimmock and Tommy Walsh - not forgetting Linda Barker for the ultimate bird box makeover - in an effort to jump start the action before the mercury plummets.

The winter can be a struggle for many of our birds so, a little food, water and shelter can go a long way to helping them through the cold snap and keep them healthy for breeding next year.

Some of the UK's most common garden birds are already preparing their winter territories - robins can be heard singing as they become more frequent visitors, while thrushes and blackbirds are also more obvious in gardens in search of food.

But you may have noticed numbers of some species visiting your garden are decreasing. House sparrows, starlings and song thrushes have all seen a decline in recent years and you can really help by feeding them throughout the year, especially in the autumn and winter. And it doesn't have to cost you money.

Many people have lots of natural resource in their gardens - trees such as birch, rowan, holly and yew are all winners with birds, while bushes and shrubs like pyracantha, berberis and hawthorn also provide good sources of food.

It's also worth remembering the super-tidy, well-manicured garden is less good for birds than one which is a bit more "relaxed" and less work for you. Seed-eating finches will benefit from a little careful neglect in dead-heading some of your plants, while creating a few piles of leaves and fallen twigs in secluded corners will help ground-feeders like dunnocks and low foragers such as wrens.

Blackbirds, thrushes and robins also like a bit of undisturbed, leaf-rich jungle to explore for food in winter and raking over a corner of the garden rubbish pile will also be much appreciated.

And if you have the space, encourage brambles, leave a few patches of nettles and allow weeds like honesty, groundsel and even thistles to survive in patches here and there. Having linnets and goldfinches as regular visitors will make the extra weeding bearable!

If you don't have bird-attracting tress and shrubs in your garden, then autumn's a good time to plant hardy species or create new shrubbery to make your home a haven for birds in the coming years.

But if space is at a premium and natural resource is lacking, there's still lots you can do to help encourage birds to visit your garden, from setting up a feeding station to stuffing food scraps in cracks and holes in fencing, tree stumps or walls.

So what should you provide? There really is an endless choice of tasty snacks you can put out for the birds - kitchen scraps such as cheese, crumbs of all sorts, fat and stale cake will all go down well.

You can hang up half a coconut or a lump of suet or make your own bird cake from melted fat, filled with nuts and raisins, frozen into something like a yoghurt pot and hung upside down on a string.

Do avoid salted food and don't put out desiccated coconut as small birds can easily choke. And make sure the fat you put out is saturated as this provides them with the energy they need for the winter.

You can also use ready-made bird food mixture, which provides birds with many of the vitamins and minerals they need and don't forget to buy peanuts as these are a firm favourite with many birds, as are sunflower seeds.

Remember, if you're using peanuts, buy them from a reputable dealer who will guarantee freedom from aflatoxins - a natural toxin which can kill birds. The RSPB produces its own range of birdcare products, which are guaranteed aflatoxin free. Avoid feeding peanuts from a plastic mesh bag as this may trap a bird or damage its feathers.

It's best to establish a regular feeding station - any flat surface will do, but a bird-table is generally best. Setting it up close to some thick cover gives small birds more protection from cats and sparrowhawks, but it's hard to get it absolutely right, so be prepared to experiment a bit to find the best situation. There are numerous variations you can try - for example, where tits, nuthatches and woodpeckers will find them.

It's very important to keep feeding-places clean, clearing up uneaten scraps and the

inevitable litter of husks and other bits and pieces every week or so.

A quick scrub-down of the birdtable surface is recommended too - rats are easily attracted to bird feeding stations and, apart from being generally unwelcome guests, can carry strains of salmonellosis which are lethal to birds.

Finally - remember water. Always make sure there's a fresh supply in the garden. If you have a pond, find time to keep at least part of it ice-free during severe weather and the same goes for bird-baths (which you can replicate with an upturned dustbin lid on a couple of bricks). But on no account add anything like anti-freeze to the water, which will kill birds far more quickly than the coldest weather.

After a swig of that you'd probably think you could fly, but birds certainly can't.

n If you want to know more about the RSPB's winter advice you can log into their web site at www.rspb.org.uk/feedthe birds