ON the face of it, John and Rachel Evans' yearly housekeeping bill of £475 for food sounds pretty frugal. Until you realise it's what they spend on seed for the wild birds that visit their garden.

And there's more. Their feathered friends get through 200 loaves of bread and 200 packets of digestive biscuits a year as well.

For anything with two wings and an appetite, 5 Lyfs Lane, Kempsey, is the place to be.

Not only is there more food than a Tom Tailed Tit can shake his tail feather at, but board and lodging too.

Since the first bird box went up in the early 1970s, John and Rachel have turned their back garden into a sort of avian Travel Lodge. There are now 25 bird boxes of all shapes, sizes and names - yes, they all have names - scattered about the place. Some attached to fences, others hidden in bushes, about half a dozen hailed to a fairly naked Christmas tree unromantically named "the flu brush" and even more fixed to a telegraph pole rejoicing under the collective name of Nelson Mandela House, after the tower block in the television comedy Only Fools and Horses.

The top box of the stack sits about 30ft up in the air, which of course is no trouble if you can fly, but must have been the very devil to erect clinging to a ladder.

"We call the top one 'Del Boy's Flat'," said John. "I nearly got vertigo sticking that one up."

Being hit by low flying aircraft must have been a danger too.

But what started out for the Evans as something to enliven their garden is now a major support system in their lives.

Rachel has been seriously ill in recent years and undergone a kidney transplant and John has a hip replacement, so the couple can't travel very far afield.

"We get our pleasure from watching the birds in the garden," John added. "Every day there is something new and it's wonderful to see."

It should also be added that all this takes place under the rather soporific gaze of the Evans' three cats.

Badger, Bunny and Sooty appear to adopt the attitude of live and let live as far as anything with feathers is concerned.

"On the rare occasion a fledgling falls out of a nest, Badger will pick it up and deliver it to us still alive," said Rachel.

"He'll open his mouth and the little bird plops out unharmed. The birds seem to sense this because the cats don't seem to bother them at all."

Both John, who is a retired machine tool engineer, and Rachel were born and brought up in the countryside and have always had an interest in it.

"Although our place is in a village, it's actually quite isolated here," said John.

"The garden is very quiet and not overlooked, so there is no disturbance from neighbours or anything like that."

He made all the bird boxes himself to a variety of designs and most are full up for the majority of the spring and summer.

"Some of the birds start moving in now, they are already gathering their bedding material, and those that have more than one brood will stay on until quite late autumn.

"It gets very busy here," he added.

To feed the gathering flock, John and Rachel put out four loaves of bread each week and four packets of digestive biscuits. Apples are wired to the trees and seeds and nuts are bought by the hundredweight sack.

"You need to watch and observe," said John. "You need to see what type of bird prefers what type of feed and put it out accordingly.

"For example, some birds like to peck at a whole loaf of bread, while others prefer bread crumbs. Some prefer to feed off the ground, but others like it in containers."

It's not just your common or garden birds all this attention to detail attracts either.

"We've had a cock pheasant with four hens, a kingfisher and even a cockatiel in the garden and we have a lot of ring necked doves," added Rachel. "It's wonderful entertainment all the year round."

Which makes £475 very well spent.