A mountain bluebird poses after gulping a grasshopper stunned by an early snow
Feeding birds is a huge industry in this country: the 46 million U.S. residents who identified themselves as birdwatchers in 2001 (the most recent comprehensive national survey of wildlife watching) spent almost $2.9 million dollars on bird food, feeders, nest boxes, and bird baths.
We all love to see birds close-up. But is feeding birds good for them?
Common bushtits forage for wildflower seeds
According to experts at Cornell University’s Project Feederwatch and the Great Backyard Bird Count (a cooperative project with the National Audubon Society), the answer is yes, if you:
Prevent avian diseases from spreading by keeping your feeder clean. Wash it with warm soapy water at least every two weeks, and then soak it in a bleach solution (one part bleach to nine parts water), and dry completely before refilling.
Feed high-quality food–the more millet, the lower the quality. Toss any bird-seed that smells rancid, has gotten wet or is moldy. Keep the ground under your feeder clean too, raking up spilled seed frequently (this will also help keep rats, squirrels, and deer from frequenting your feeder).
Expect sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks, owls and other predators: a feeder attracts crowds of birds, and their noise attracts predators to the newly created avian lunch bar. If you can’t tolerate seeing the food web operate at your feeder, take the feeder in for a few days, and the winged predators will move on.
Keep cats indoors, where they can safely watch the birds attracted to your feeder.
And don’t just put out a bird feeder. Create habitat for native birds by planting wildflowers, grasses, and shrubs that provide seeds, berries, and shelter for these winged neighbors.
American goldfinch feeding on a wild sunflower head
I grew up with bird feeders hung out in winter. I loved watching the antics of “our” yard birds. Once I had my own yard though, I realized that planting a bird-friendly garden was at least as effective in supporting our feathered friends.
And I grew concerned about the environmental impact of commercially grown bird-seed: the same pesticides and herbicides are used on bird-seed as on conventional crops, and the monocultural fields replace diverse bird habitat.
So I quit using bird feeders. Until the summer of a serious drought, when even our restored native dryland meadow yard yielded few nectar-producing flowers for the hummingbirds. I hung out one sugar-water feeder.
Female broadtailed hummingbird coming into the feeder (note her belly-bump--she looks like she's carrying at least one egg)
Two winters later, an unusual cold snap left a foot of snow on the ground for more than a month, a rarity in our sunny, high-desert climate. I worried about the little birds, especially the mixed flock of juncos that forage in our bunchgrass yard in winter. I dithered about what to do, unable to convince myself putting out seed was a good idea, until the day Richard, my sculptor husband, came in from his shop bearing a gift: two stars jig-sawed out of half-inch-thick particle board, with a hole drilled in the top point of each star, and a loop of twine threaded through as a hanger.
Stars ready for peanut butter
“They’re for the juncos,” he said, and went back outside to install two screws under the eaves of our back porch for the stars.
Peanut butter on!
I promptly slathered each star with peanut butter (fresh-ground, organic of course!), dredged them in a mix of chopped walnuts, raisins, dried cranberries, and dried cherries (also organic), and hung them up.
Rolling a star in the chopped nuts and dried fruit
It took the junco flock about two days to find “their” stars, and each winter since, they have delighted us by skulking in the big rabbitbrush just off the back porch, and then flying up to perch on the stars and pick off the fruit, nuts, and peanut butter until the stars are bare, at which point, the juncos hop up on the back porch and look accusingly into the kitchen until I notice the stars need re-slathering.
Last year, Richard fashioned clever wire perches below the stars to make access even easier for the juncos.
This fall, the first snow fell before I had time to hang out the juncos’ stars. The little birds poked around on the back porch as if trying to get my attention, but I was preoccupied with taking care of my love, who was at home in hospice care with terminal brain cancer.
A few days after he died, I saw the junco flock hanging out in the snow-covered rabbitbrush and felt guilty, remembering their stars. I scraped the stars off, got the organic peanut butter out of the fridge, chopped the organic dried fruit and nuts, and readied the first star. I carried it outside and hung it on its screw under the porch eaves.
A star, partly nibbled by feeding juncos
And laughed out loud when a junco flew right up to the wire perch and began pecking at the star, stretching energetically on its tiptoes to pick off choice pieces of nut and dried fruit.
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Whether or not you feed birds, consider participating in Project Feederwatch and the Great Backyard Bird Count. Your observations provide valuable data for researchers studying the lives and needs of our avian neighbors. Being a “citizen scientist” is one way to make a positive contribution to the future of our planet and its living communities.
© 2011, Susan J. Tweit. All rights reserved. This article is the property of Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens. If you are reading this at another site, please report that to us
About Susan J. Tweit
Wonderful post Susan! I have been thinking of you. I, like you, decided to stop feeding the birds from feeders and for most of the same reasons. I do not want to spread GMO plants about either. Bears semi hibernate and I guess I just do not want to experience those majestic beasts quite so close again. Last year after having bluebirds come to my window and catch the flies I let out, I decided they may need a bit of help too. I love your stars! Take good care.
Carol Duke recently posted..December Sky Delights Swallowing Moon and Sun
Not spreading GMO plants is another good reason to not use seed feeders, Carol, and of course, so is not wanting to feed larger creatures, including beers and deer. Thanks for reminding me. Interestingly, the mule deer that haunt my neighborhood haven’t found my junco stars, perhaps because they’re right on the back porch… Your bluebirds probably really appreciate the supply of extra flies from the house!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
Susan,
Thank you, that was beautiful, every tasty morsel of your writing and images. Thanks for feeding me with your inspired writing.
Best to you,
Renee
Renee recently posted..Ojai Trees to plant Sycamore and Redbud on Matilija SYH
Renee, What a lovely compliment, and you’re most welcome. I sometimes tell my writing workshops that to me, life is like a compost pile: you give your experiences to the pile, turn them occasionally, make sure they’re nothing rank in there, and given enough time, they mature into something nurturing or at least useful… Blessings to you.
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
Never thought bout the bird seed having to be grown somewhere, and the domino impact of that.
Elephant’s Eye recently posted..The Twelve Days of Christmas
Susan thx for this great post. I too stopped feeding birds because I could not keep up and I was tired of feeding other animals…so I have been feeding them with natives and adding more as I go to make sure they have enough. I had not thought of the GMo and pesticide laden seed but that is a good point as well. I love the stars…what a great idea….my juncos who now frequent the yard would love them…but so would the squirrels
Donna@Gardens Eye View recently posted..The Making of a Meadow
Donna, I sympathize about how much work feeders get to be, and then the creatures you aren’t intending to feed don’t seem to understand that! If you find a place where squirrels can’t climb–on your house, for instance, instead of on trees or shrubs, the juncos will come in quite close for them. (Mine hang from the beams under my back porch, for instance.) But your juncos probably have enough natural food anyway…
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
I didn’t think about it until Richard and I began driving across the southern Great Plains to help with his Dad’s hospice care about six years ago, and we passed through miles and miles and miles of milo and sunflower fields where shortgrass prairie once grew, providing habitat for pronghorn antelope, sharp-tailed grouse, long-billed curlew and other shorebirds in migration, and many other bird species, not to mention the lizards, spadefoot toads, and other little critters. I started thinking about replacing prairie and its diverse bird community with milo and sunflower fields to feed backyard birds. It seemed wrong to favor one set of bird over another…
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
I have been pondering these issues, too. I am inclined to provide as much local food to birds as possible and reduce the feeding to the minimum. One thing that bothers me aside from the ones discussed here is the amount of land devoted to growing birdseed. Farmers are depriving birds of all that habitat; perhaps we are deluding ourselves when we think that we are helping the birds by buying birdseed. I have decided to favor locavore birds.
Beatriz Moisset recently posted..Pollinators, the night shift
Beatriz, I agree with you about providing local food, and as I said above, I started thinking about the implications of agricultural production of birdseed and when my husband and I were regularly driving across the southern Great Plains, through miles and miles and miles of monocultural fields devoted to growing millet and sunflowers where diverse prairie once grew. I think providing food in the form of the plants the birds would naturally feed from is the best way to go, because habitat that feeds and shelters the birds we enjoy watching also nurtures other native creatures, including, of course, pollinators (both daytime and nighttime ones, like the moths and bats you profile in your recent blog post).
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
Excellent article! I struggled for years with whether I should put a feeder up. I resisted, but last year I took the plunge. I’m glad I did. Jays, nuthatches, and chickadees were regular visitors- of course, so were the squirrels!
Thank you, Mike. I hope that whatever each of us chooses in terms of feeding birds, we all continue to provide natural habitat, food, shelter, and water, in our yards and neighborhoods. And that if those of use who choose to feed birds (and other wildlife) educate ourselves about the sources of our bird-food: where it’s grown, how it’s grown, and the impact of growing bird-food on the environment and on the very birds we love…
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
Since my move to FL I stopped putting out a feeder (except for a brief time when I got a new camera with a zoom..selfish, I know!). In NY I maintained one from Thanksgiving through whenever things started appearing in the garden from under snowcover. I do have a platform set up where I will occasionally treat the woodpeckers to some nuts and I also put the native seeds or berries that come off the shrubs (eg, a wax myrtle blew down leaving a bounty of berries..although I suppose the birds could serve themselves from the brushpile). I’d rather see the birds dancing on the bluestem grass sideways and jumping through the dahoon holly, but up north I doubt that I’d give up the winter opportunity of a feeder.
Loret recently posted..Bug Gangs
Loret, I agree with you, and that’s a beautiful description: “I’d rather see the birds dancing on the bluestem grass sideways and jumping through the dahoon holly.” I think the important thing is to be thoughtful about what we do in providing food and habitat to our avian neighbors, and to understand the tradeoffs in our actions. Thanks for being mindful and self-aware…
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
What a wonderful article and insightful comments. I abandoned feeding wild birds after realizing how much urban “wildlife” was feeding at night but I really missed the birds. The solution for my yard was hot pepper suet which the birds love but is rejected by most mammals. When a young squirrel comes to take a taste, you can almost hear what he says as he or she wrinkles up their nose. And they never return. My red bellied woodpeckers are my favorites.
Ruth, Your hot pepper suet is a great idea. I assume it’s anointed with chiles, and the interesting thing there is that chiles evolved the hot compounds–capsacins, which are colorless, odorless chemicals that tweak mammal’s pain receptors–in order to keep mammals from feeding on their red fruits and crushing their seeds with their grinding teeth. Chiles “want” to attract birds to feed on their fruit, so their fruits are red when ripe (most birds preferentially see red) and the capsacins that so pain mammals don’t bother birds at all. (Birds have no teeth, so they don’t destroy the pepper seeds when they eat the fruit, and in fact, their digestive juices prepare the seeds for ripening as they go through the bird’s gut; the birds then deposit the ready-to-germinate seeds in a pat of bird fertilizer. It’s a very neat example of the many beneficial relationships between plants and animals!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Steps toward reclaiming my writing time
Susan: Thanks for covering this subject in such a warm and understanding way. I have two feeders but primarily feed the birds through native plants, and by not using pesticides, and creating layers of habitat.
Sue, Thank you for that lovely compliment. Kudos for eschewing pesticides, planting native plants, and creating layers of habitat. I bet the birds love your garden! My biggest concern with feeding really is the source of the food, whether seed, suet, nuts or whatever, and the effect producing that food has on the environment.
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Almost 29 years
Susan, I enjoyed your post very much. I don’t worry about feeding our birds in So Cal, as there is so much native food year-round. I just provide them with plenty of water. But what struck me in your post was your Juncos & those peanut butter stars.. Whenever you hang them, your love Richard & your birds will both be there with you .. Peace to you through the holidays~
Kathy @nativegardener recently posted..On the First Day of Christmas, my Wildlife Garden Gave to Me..
Kathy, I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Lucky you, living in a climate where native food is available year-round! It’s good that you provide water, as it’s definitely a limiting factor there. Your observation about the juncos and their stars is just how I feel. I love seeing the juncos feeding from his gift to them–it makes me smile. Happy holidays to you.
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Almost 29 years
I noticed you wrote that several bird seed sellers have used pesticides and herbicides on their seed. How can I tell if my seed has been contaminated with these? must the bag say organic?
Audrey, I’m afraid that unless the bag says the seed is either organic or is grown without pesticides and herbicides, you can assume that it was grown conventionally, with the usual pesticides. Most birdseed is grown conventionally (using pesticides and herbicides, as well as fertilizers that pollute groundwater and rivers and streams), and if I were feeding seed, that would be a big concern.