BIRDS which live in towns and cities are lazier than their country cousins and enjoy a daily lie-in, according to the results of a survey by the British Trust for Ornithology.

Members of the BTO’s garden ecology team, working with data submitted by listeners to the BBC’s Radio Four Today programme, found that townie birds started their daily feeding significantly later than members of the same species in rural areas.

The survey was carried out in mid-winter just before Christmas last year and researchers believe that town birds can enjoy the luxury of a lie-in because of heat which escapes from buildings in urban areas.

This can boost temperatures by as much as eight degrees centigrade. Without this extra heat, countryside birds have to start foraging earlier to keep up their body temperatures or risk death from hypothermia.