Since the snow, I've become obsessed with feeding the birds in the back yard. And with the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch coming up this weekend, I've even started buying food specially for them - nuts, seeds, dried fruit - to complement their regular diet of old brown bread and tired cheese ends and I'm putting out water so they can have a drink or a bath while it's frozen elsewhere. 

It's easy to take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch - you just have to sit for an hour watching your garden or a patch in a local park - the Myddleton Road Community Garden or Finsbury Gardens would be good - and record what birds you see and how many of each. Then send off your results to the RSPB and help them track the welfare of bird populations across the UK. 

I'm grooming a pair of magpies, a robin, a pair of blackbirds, a gang of pigeons and a blue tit - as well as a couple of territorial squirrels - fingers crossed they all come for breakfast on Saturday. 

Find out more and sign up here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/

There's also feeding advice here.

Pictured is my favourite pigeon, Frank, last summer. 

Don't tell him I went feeding the pigeons in St James's Park this weekend.