Bread is off the menu – so what should we feed the ducks now?

Breadcrumbs are officially bad for the nation's waterfowl, so, armed with kale, seeds and grapes, we find out what's good for the goose (as well as the duck and the coot)

It's not just a canard. The Canal and River Trust's campaign to stop people feeding ducks bread is working - with the organisation reporting a reduction of about 80,000 loaves being chucked in the water in the past 12 months. This is good because bread leads to overpopulation, spreads disease if it's left uneaten, attract rats and lets the birds binge eat and get ill instead of eating healthy things such as worms.

Organisations such as the Canal and River Trust offer suggestions as to what we should feed waterfowl instead of a stale slice of Warburtons Toastie. So we decided to put on a tasting menu. Armed with a shopping list of recommended foods, including sweetcorn, grapes and seeds, I got what I could and headed to the canal next to Guardian HQ to see what the local community of mallards, coots and canada geese would make of a smorgasbord worthy of, er, Nigella Lawswan. Here's the birds' verdict "

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