“The sparrows used to fill my hedge every morning. Last winter I found two, pecking at a frozen birdbath for water.” — Why a 74-year-old former balloon pilot from Bristol is letting his last balloon bird feeders go at a special price, before his shed closes for good and the sparrows face another frozen winter.

Last January, Ray Penhallow watched a house sparrow tap at his frozen birdbath for ten minutes. It never got a single drop. A week later, the hedge outside his kitchen window, once home to more than thirty sparrows, had just two left.

Most people think about food when the cold comes. They hang up seed and fat balls and feel they have done their bit. But when every puddle and birdbath turns to ice, small birds are left with nothing to drink. They also can’t wash their feathers, and dirty feathers don’t keep them warm.

The danger nobody sees: a garden full of seed and not a drop to drink

A blue tit weighs about as much as a £1 coin. On a cold night it can lose around a tenth of its body weight just keeping warm. By morning it needs two things fast: food to rebuild its fat, and water to drink.

Most British gardens offer neither. Hedges have been cut back, ponds filled in, and old sheds made tidy. The house sparrow and the starling are now both on the UK’s Red List of birds in serious decline. They were once so common nobody bothered to count them.

He watched the hedges disappear from 2,000 feet up

Ray Penhallow knows the West Country from above. For 31 years he flew hot-air balloons over Somerset and the Mendips. Every August he took off with the others from Bristol’s balloon fiesta.

“From the basket you see everything,” he says, pouring tea from a dented flask. “Every year there was another hedge gone. Another pond turned into a car park. I could see it happening. I just didn’t know what it meant until I landed for good.”

He found out in his own garden. In the winter after his last flight, the birdbath froze solid for nine days. “The sparrows sat on the fence and stared at it. They had nowhere else to go.”

So Ray did what a balloon man does. He built a small copy of his first balloon, Bluebell, with its violet, blue and green stripes. He filled the balloon with seed, and where the basket would hang, he hung a little bath for water. The next morning, the sparrows were back.

What makes Ray’s balloon so different from a shop-bought bird feeder

Most bird feeders hold only seed. Most birdbaths stand alone at the far end of the lawn. Ray’s idea was simple: put food and water in one place, where a cat can’t reach.

• “The basket bath.” A shallow water dish hangs on gold chains right below the seed balloon, just like a balloon basket. Birds drink and bathe right next to their food.
• “The ripple floor.” The bottom of the dish has gentle ripples, so small feet can grip and the water stays shallow.
• “The hanging flight.” The balloon hangs from a branch or a hook, away from fences and walls where cats climb.
• “The seed window.” Fill the balloon with seed, and small garden birds like blue tits and sparrows take it from the arched opening, standing on the little perch below.
• “The church-window panels.” Coloured panels framed in gold. When the low winter sun shines through, they light up like a stained-glass window.

“People buy it because it’s beautiful,” Ray says. “The birds come because there’s food and water. Both are fine with me.”

Eleven winters, almost 3,000 balloons, and one sound he will miss

Since that first winter, Ray has built almost 3,000 balloons in his shed. His wife Pat brings him tea at eleven. In January, the two of them still count the sparrows from the kitchen window.

“What I’ll miss most is the first morning a new one goes up,” he says. “You hang it, you go inside, and within an hour there’s a blue tit sitting on the bath. That sound of a little splash. I never got tired of it.”

The hands that flew for 31 years can no longer hold the brush

The arthritis started in his thumbs two winters ago. Now it is in every finger. The thin gold lines between the coloured panels need a steady hand, and Ray’s no longer is.

“I can still lift a ladder,” he says. “I can’t paint a straight line the width of a hair. And I won’t sell a crooked one.”

There is no one to take over. When the last balloon leaves his shed, there will be no more. Right now, 212 are left.

Why he could ask far more, and won’t

Ray could charge twice as much. Collectors have asked. He has said no every time.

“I don’t want them on a shelf,” he says. “I want them in gardens before the first hard frost. If one more sparrow gets through January because of one of these, that’s my payment.”

So the last 212 balloons are going for £41.95 instead of £69.95, with free UK delivery. Whoever hangs one this winter carries a little of Ray’s life’s work on, and gives the birds outside food and water in one place.

What bird lovers say about Ray’s balloons

• ★★★★★

  “I hung it in the old pear tree in November. Two days later a pair of blue tits were drinking from the bath every morning. My grandson calls it the bird café with a swimming pool.”

  — Susan H., Taunton
• ★★★★★

  “Even more beautiful in real life. When the sun is low it glows like the window in our village church. It’s the first thing visitors ask about.”

  — Graham P., Exeter
• ★★★★★

  “Bought one for my mum, who can’t get out much any more. She watches the sparrows splash about from her armchair. Best present I’ve given her in years.”

  — Clare W., Gloucester

Your questions, answered

Readers’ gardens: Ray’s balloons in their new homes

• ★★★★★

  “We had a week of frost in January. Ours was the only water on the whole street. I counted nine sparrows queuing on the branch.”

  — Mark T., Bath
• ★★★★★

  “Lovely to know there’s a real person and a real story behind it. I ordered two, one for us and one for my sister in Cardiff.”

  — Janet R., Bristol
• ★★★★★

  “Easy to hang, easy to top up with the watering can. The blue tits empty the seed by lunchtime.”

  — Peter L., Swindon