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Why It's OK to Feed Wild Birds
Scott Shalaway, www.shalaway.com
 As
frosty mornings become more rule than exception, people begin to think
about feeding wild birds. But every year a few people ask if feeding
birds is a good idea. "Won't birds become unnaturally dependent
on our generosity?," they wonder.
It's a great question, and I'll add two more I often hear. Why feed
birds in the first place? Isn't there plenty of natural food out there?
Yes, there's almost always plenty of natural food available, but birds
are opportunists. They take advantage of all food sources.
We feed birds for our enjoyment. We welcome their company, their entertaining
behavior, their bright colors. That's why Americans spend more than
two billion (yes, billion with a "B") dollars each year
on bird food and feeders and place it outside windows where we spend
lots of time. We feed birds so we can watch them.
And though it may seem counter-intuitive, wild birds do not become
dependent on feeders because they are highly mobile and naturally
depend on patchy food supplies. Their survival depends on an innate
ability to find unpredictably distributed patches of food. When one
patch is exhausted, they move on to another. In the course of birds'
daily lives, they visit many different food patches and thus are continually
monitoring changing food supplies.
Feeders are simply reliable food patches, which birds readily use.
If you take a vacation in January, your birds will find natural foods
or other feeders. When you return and refill the feeders, bird are
back within 48 hours because they continually monitor known food sources.
Furthermore, though it may seem that birds are at feeders all day
long and thus appear to become dependent, observations of banded birds
indicate that, though you may see birds at feeders all day long, they
are not the same individuals. They move throughout the day to visit
many food sources.
Thus far, my explanation is based on my own observations and interpretations
of banded backyard bird populations and conversations with others
who have made similar observations. But ornithologists Stanley Temple
and Margaret Brittingham have studied banded populations of chickadees
in Wisconsin. They found no dependence or differences in winter survival
between birds with access to feeders and those without access to feeders.
They also reported that even when birds had access to feeders, they
got only 21 percent of their food from them. This certainly does not
imply dependence.
But if you do feed wild birds, be sure feeders are filled during severe
winter weather (extreme cold and heavy snow) and ice storms. Ice storms
are most devastating to birds because food is literally locked away,
and if this persists for more than 36 hours, birds will surely starve.
Unlike mammals, which can lay on fat reserves to get through extended
periods of winter weathers, winter birds must eat enough each day
to get them through the night. At dawn the metabolic furnace is empty,
and birds must eat to survive. Two days with no food due to ice coverage
is certain to kill many birds.
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