The Science of Birds - Feeding Wild Birds: Pros and Cons

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

This episode—which is Number 60—is about Feeding Wild Birds. As in, humans providing supplemental food for wild birds.This typically involves a contraption called a birdfeeder. When you or I hang up a birdfeeder, we’re feeding wild birds intentionally. This intentional feeding is what today’s episode is about.Millions and millions of people all around the world feed wild birds intentionally. At such a massive scale, you have to imagine this would affect birds significantly, and in many ways. And it absolutely does.Which brings us to the big question: should we or shouldn’t we feed wild birds? This is still being debated. By scientists, conservation organizations, and bird lovers everywhere.Today, I’ll do my best to give you objective, scientific information about feeding birds. We’ll look at the pros and cons. Then, we’ll see if there’s any sort of conclusion we can come to at the end of the episode.~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~Links of InterestAnalysis: Do Bird Feeders Help Or Hurt Birds? Birds not dependent on feeders, study suggestsLink to this episode on the Science of Birds websiteSupport the show

Hello and welcome. This is the Science of Birds. I am your host, Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners. This episode, which is number 60, is about. feeding wild birds, as in humans providing supplemental food for wild birds. Lucky snacks the birds wouldn't have access to in a natural setting. This, of course, typically involves a contraption called a bird feeder. I imagine many of you listening have one or more of these

things in your yard right now. I've got a few myself. When you or I hang up a bird feeder, we're feeding wild birds intentionally. This intentional feeding is what today's episode is about. We're not talking about unintentional feeding. So this isn't about crows finding scraps at the city dump, jays stealing your trail mix in a campground, or vultures picking meat off your bones after you got lost in the desert and perished under the cruel sun. Millions and millions of people all around the world feed wild birds intentionally. At such a massive scale, you have to imagine this would affect birds significantly and in many ways. And it absolutely does. Without really meaning to, humans have been conducting

a worldwide experiment on birds. Scientists still haven't unraveled all the consequences of feeding wild birds. But it's clear that by offering so much supplemental food to birds, we're causing things to change for them, in ways both good and bad, and probably in some ways we don't understand yet. Which brings us to the big question, should we or shouldn't we feed wild birds? This is still being debated by scientists, conservation organizations, and bird lovers everywhere. And I'm pretty sure this will be one of the key issues candidates will argue about during our upcoming elections this fall. Today, I'll do my best to give you objective, scientific information about feeding birds.

We'll look at the pros and the cons. Then we'll see if there's any sort of conclusion we can come to at the end of the episode. Okay, here we go. How many times have you seen a sign at a park or nature reserve that says, Do not feed the animals? Or don't feed the wildlife? A lot, right? We're told that feeding wild animals is bad for them, and possibly bad for us, too. If you try to feed a feisty critter like a raccoon, bear, or crocodile, you might lose a finger, a hand, your sense of self-respect, or worse. I get frustrated when I see people.

people feeding squirrels or other wild animals, ignoring the posted warning signs. I mean, I get it. I'm human, and I also have the urge to toss some potato chips at those twitchy little scroungers. But I do my best to follow the rules. I trust the rules exist for a good reason. But there aren't really any rules about feeding wild birds in our backyards. The general message I gleaned from society is that offering food to your resident birds is a commendable practice. Society tells us, yes, please feed them. What are you waiting for? Bird feeding is a fun-filled activity the whole family can enjoy. For the last few decades, bird feeding has steadily grown in popularity, at least in the United States, Canada, the UK,

Australia, and New Zealand. Amazingly, about half of all households in these countries put out food for birds. In America, this means that over 50 million people take part in the hobby of feeding wild birds. Americans spend over $5 billion a year on bird food and related paraphernalia. Over 100 bird species in North America visit bird feeders. The species that most often help themselves to the bounty at our feeders are the dark-eyed junco, morning dove, blue jay, and black-capped chickadee. Their counterparts in the United Kingdom are the House Sparrow, Blue Tit,

European Starling, and Eurasian Blackbird. Australia's most frequent visitors to backyard feeders are the Australian magpie and a couple parrot species, the rainbow lorikeet and eastern Rosella. The most common species in New Zealand are House Sparrow, Eurasian Blackbird, and Silver Eye. As I understand, feeding wild birds

isn't such a popular pastime in most other countries. Not yet anyway. Maybe it's only a matter of time before it spreads more widely. Those of us who do love to feed birds have many options for what and how to feed them. Depending on the species you want to attract, you can choose feeders that hang or feeders placed on the ground. Some are designed to offer solid food. Others contain sugar water or fruit jelly. We feed birds seeds and nuts of many kinds. as well as fruit, suet, peanut butter, and sometimes even meat. I've heard that people in Australia use ground beef to appease their backyard laughing kookaburas and Australian magpies.

Maybe some of my Australian listeners can tell me if that's true. Anyway, this episode isn't about how to feed birds. There's a ton of info about that on the internet. Right now, let's stay focused on what science tells us about the pros and cons of feeding wild birds. but before we dive into all that, I want to briefly talk about a few ways scientists go about studying birds that visit feeders. First, there's the approach of making direct observations. Simply watching birds as they visit feeders and then recording data. What data gets written down depends on the research question. But we're talking about things like which bird species,

the time of day, the temperature, how long the bird stays at the feeder, interactions between species, what kind of feeder certain species choose, and so on. Researchers often collect data like this themselves. They stare at bird feeders for hours and hours day after day. But another less tedious option is to rely on observations made by thousands of bird enthusiasts like you and me. people who keep tabs on their own backyard birds. Citizen science data submitted to e-bird or project feeder watch or similar projects are accessible to researchers.

It's sometimes necessary to know the individual identity of birds if you want to answer certain research questions. Not just which species, but which individual. bird banding or bird ringing as they say in the UK has been the go-to method for identifying individual birds for over 100 years this is where one or more tiny plastic or metal tags is attached to a bird often on the legs but sometimes on the wings the tags have unique color combinations or ID numbers in more recent decades ornithologists have been using pit tags as another alternative pit. Pit is an acronym that stands for passive integrated transponder. This tiny device has the shape and size of a large grain of rice.

It can be attached to a bird's leg or wing, or it can be implanted under the skin. This is the same microchip technology people use to tag their pet cats and dogs. Scientists can use a pit tag reader to scan a bird, revealing its unique ID number. Some researchers have even set up bird feeders with built-in pit-tag readers so that every tagged bird that visits the feeder is automatically identified, and that is just super cool. What's even cooler is using artificial intelligence to ID individual birds from only photos or videos. For example, a camera could automatically snap a photo of a bird that lands on a feeder. then that photo is sent to an AI system on a computer for analysis. This sort of thing is becoming common for IDing birds at the species level.

But using images to ID individual birds is an exciting new approach that's still being developed by scientists. It'll be interesting to see if this becomes a viable way to study birds in the future. All right, pros and cons, the good and the bad when it comes to feeding wild birds. Some consequences of feeding birds are undeniably bad, and others are clearly good, but sometimes it's not so easy to judge. It comes down to a matter of perspective. When we say something is a pro, a pro for who exactly? For birds or for us? And if we say something is good for birds, which birds? Are we talking about all of them or just some species? In the United Kingdom, for example, populations of blue tits and great tits have increased dramatically in some regions because of supplemental feeding by humans. So from the perspective, of these birds, feeding is great. Bring it on, keep those peanuts and sunflower seeds coming.

But blue tits and great tits can out-compete some other native songbirds in the UK. For example, they often take over the nest cavities of their close cousin, the willow tit. Willow-tit populations have been declining in the UK for decades, in part, perhaps because they can't compete with the increasingly abundant and socially dominant blue and great tits. So, humans feed blue and great tits, these species increase in number, they outcompete willow tits for food and nests, and this contributes to the dwindling numbers of willow tits. Bird feeding in this scenario is a pro for the first two tit species, but it's a con for the

willow tit, at least in a roundabout way. You get the idea here, I'm sure. Let's go ahead and look at some pros, while keeping in mind that what we think of as good or bad is often a matter of perspective. One clear benefit for birds that visit our garden feeders is that they generally have better health and survival. They have access to a dependable, abundant food source. Some might call it a veritable cornucopia of delectable delights.

Numerous studies have shown that birds. birds who visit feeders do pretty well for themselves. For example, one study published in the journal Conservation Physiology looked at 11 bird species in the forests of central Illinois, species like Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch, and Indigo Bunting. Birds in this study that had access to food in bird feeders were significantly healthier than those that didn't have access. The birds that visited feeders had higher antioxidant levels circulating in their blood,

as well as lower stress levels and faster feather growth. Some of them were in better shape because they packed on more fat and muscle. So supplemental feeding improves the health of individual birds, and during the winter or other times when natural foods are scarce, the extra sustenance offered by humans can help birds survive. dozens of studies have shown that by feeding wild birds we also improve their reproductive output birds that get supplemental food during the breeding season get lots of reproductive benefits they lay eggs earlier they lay more eggs their chicks grow faster and their fledglings are more

likely to survive even when birds have access to some lucky extra food only in the winter they can get benefits weeks later when the breeding season kicks in. For example, a study of blue tits in Ireland found that even six weeks after supplemental feeding in winter had been cut off, these birds started laying eggs sooner when spring rolled around. Sooner, that is, than blue tits that had not been given supplemental food in winter. And the birds that were fed in winter also had more surviving chicks. This study gives us an example of what biologists call carryover effects. The health benefits of supplemental feeding in winter were carried over into the spring for those Irish blue tits.

Then we have range expansion. The situation where a bird species increases its geographic range moving into regions where it didn't exist before. This usually happens over the course of decades. Some bird species seem to have expanded their ranges because we have lured them with the overflowing bounty of our backyard bird feeders. In North America, some species that have moved northward in the last century include Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, and Anna's Hummingbird. There's evidence that these range expansions aren't only the result of a warming climate or habitat change. Supplementary feeding seems to be part of the equation.

But is range expansion a pro or a con? That's hard to say. For species like the ones I mentioned, their spread northward probably isn't natural. So, if you think anything caused by humans is unnatural and therefore undesirable, maybe your verdict would be range expansion equals bad.

On the other hand, if you were super stoked back in the early 2000s when Anna's hummingbirds became year-round residence in your neighborhood, well, maybe you were a big fan of range expansion. I mean, who wouldn't want more hummingbirds in their life? I mentioned Project Feeder Watch earlier. This is a long-term citizen science program that's been running since the late 80s in the continental U.S. and Canada. It focuses on what bird species are where and their abundances during the winter months. Anyone can submit counts of their backyard birds to Project Feeder Watch. Over 30 years of data from the project have revealed a few things about the effects of all

our supplemental feeding. For example, bird species that regularly visit our backyard feeders, the populations of those species have been growing over the years. They seem to be doing better because we're feeding them. So, feeding wild birds can improve the their health and their chances of survival. It can help them crank out more babies and help them expand their ranges into new frontiers. These effects combined seem to have resulted in population growth for many species, at least for the species that regularly visit feeders. One last pro I want to mention is how bird feeding is beneficial to us, to humans. By attracting birds to our gardens and backyards and enjoying them, we can build a deeper connection with

nature. That's one incredibly valuable benefit. As I'm sure you know, experiencing the natural world like this can do a lot to improve our mental and emotional well-being. It's no coincidence that interest in backyard birds exploded during the COVID lockdowns in 2020. As we get to know and love our little backyard buddies, we might feel more motivated to help wild birds. We might choose to take meaningful action on conservation issues, like actually doing something to protect endangered species or save threatened habitats. Some of us might even get the crazy idea to start a podcast about birds. Stranger things have happened. The benefits that we get from feeding birds, therefore, can lead to another checkmark in the

pro column for birds around the world. We feed birds, then we grow to love and understand them, then we feel more motivation to help them. And then, most importantly, we take action to make the world a better place for birds. If you're about to jump in your car, zoom off and run several red lights on your way to the garden supply store to buy 20 new bird feeders, well, hold your horses there, speedy. I appreciate the enthusiasm. I really do, but we haven't covered the downsides yet. We need to look at the potential cons of feeding wild birds. First up is dependency. Many people express concern that if they feed wild birds in their yard, the birds will become dependent on this artificially reliable supply of food. The little buggers will assume that they're on

easy street forever and quickly forget how to take care of themselves. What if by setting up a bird feeder you're making an irreversible commitment to feed dozens of ravenous birds for the rest of your life? You probably don't want that kind of responsibility. And such dependency would be a definite con for birds. The idea that birds will become dependent on us, for food is reasonable. But interestingly, there isn't much scientific evidence supporting it. More research is needed, but there are some interesting studies that have already looked into this topic. The most recent of these was conducted by biologists at my alma mater, Oregon State University. They attached pit tags to 67 black-capped chickadees, Piscili Atrocapilus.

Each tagged bird received one of three treatments. One, heavy clipping of the flight feathers. Two, light clipping of the flight feathers. Or three, no clipping as the experimental control treatment. All the chickadees could still fly after clipping. But clipping increases wing loading, which means it takes more energy for a bird to fly with clipped wings. heavier clipping leads to more calories being burned during flight.

The researchers set up 21 bird feeders along a 3-kilometer stretch of the riparian habitat where the birds had been captured. This experiment was run in the winter. The feeders were filled with sunflower seeds and equipped with pit tag readers. So when a chickadee landed on the feeder to grab a sunflower seed, the tag reader recorded the ID of the individual bird. If these black-capped chickadees were dependent on the feeders for surviving the winter, what would you expect to happen?

You'd probably predict that the handicapped birds, the ones with clipped wings, would need more food, more calories to survive the winter. Therefore, they should visit the feeders more often than the control birds, the ones with unclipped wings. But that's not what happened. For the most part, birds with clipped wings visited just as many feeders, and they visited feeders just as often as the birds with no clipping. Apparently, the handicapped chickadees were able to get the extra food they needed from

natural sources. So this study tells us that dependency might not be an inevitable outcome when we feed wild birds. Likewise, research on some other species, like Australian magpies, shows that birds keep eating their natural foods, even though they like to pop in at our backyard feeders every so often. Birds are smart. They'll hang around to take advantage of the free food we offer them, but that doesn't mean they forget how to forage for their natural foods. They keep their options open, and most of them will be okay if we stop feeding them. Moving on to look at a couple

effects of bird feeding that are more clearly negative. The threat of present, Predators is sometimes a major problem for the birds coming to our feeders. We can create unnaturally large and conspicuous gatherings of small birds when we put out food in our yards. Predators are surely going to notice all the ruckus. Public enemy number one here is the domestic cat. Your furry pal, snowball, buttons, Jeremy, or whatever its name is, That beast is a bird-killing machine. If you need to be convinced, listen to episode 23 of this podcast, titled Cats vs. Birds.

Another type of predator attracted to the easy pickings at our feeders are some hawk species in the genus Axipeter. Cooper's Hawk and the Sharp Shin Hawk are bird-eating specialists in North America. Feeder birds in the UK are terrorized by a similar species, the Eurasian's Sparrowhawk. Cooper's hawks have become the most common backyard raptor in North America. It seems these guys are everywhere. I've had them swooping around in my yard, eyeballing songbirds at my feeders and sizing up our pet chickens. Predators lurking around our gardens kill not only adult birds coming and going at the feeder. Some predators also threaten birds in the nest, adults, eggs, and nestlings. Small birds attracted to the reliance. Small birds attracted to the

reliable supply of seeds or whatever will sometimes set up their nests close by. Those nests can be vulnerable to predators like snakes, jays, and squirrels. Next, we have the problem of window collisions. Countless birds are killed or injured when they slam into windows and other human structures. This is a big topic, and I plan to cover it in depth in a future podcast episode. There are many factors involved in the tragedy of birds flying into windows. One of them does appear to be the presence of bird feeders. So we can mark window collisions down as a con for feeding birds.

I'll come back to this issue in a few minutes. But first, let's consider some more consequences of feeding wild birds. Supplemental food sources often bring together bird species that might not otherwise rub shoulders out there in the wilderness. This can lead to more frequent scuffles between species as they compete for tasty peanuts or suet or whatever. Interactions like this can be stressful, and plenty of fighting between members of the same species occurs at feeders as well. Individual interactions like these, as well as the population size changes I talked about earlier, can lead to large-scale changes in bird communities.

When I say bird community, I'm talking about the association of multiple bird species, all living in the same area. Supplemental feeding has been associated with changing bird community composition over time in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

In other words, the mixture of species in some regions has changed, at least in part, because of feeding. Supplemental feeding has tipped the natural balance of bird species. species. Species that love to visit feeders tend to increase in number, while other species might decline. Remember those blue tits, great tits, and willow tits I talked about earlier.

Another concern people have is about offering food to birds during their migrations. You might hear people say that you should take your feeders down in the post-breeding migration season. The fear is that if a bird discovers the seemingly limitless buffet of a feeder, it might forget all about migrating and just plop down where it is. Then winter comes along and the bird's in trouble because it can't handle the cold weather. The good news is that this rarely happens, as far as we know. Birds that migrate long distances to escape the winter cold are operating on powerful instincts. The thing that triggers their migratory behavior is photo period, in other words, how many hours of sunlight there is each day. Some extra food

probably isn't going to override a bird's drive to continue migrating. It might even be helpful to offer foods to birds during their migrations. They can stop to stuff their gullets at your feeder, regaining strength before moving on. Now, that said, there is scientific evidence that all of our supplementary feeding has changed the way some bird species migrate. The best example I know of is the Eurasian black cap, Sylvia Atricapilla. This is a small gray songbird in the family Silveity. Quick side note, the scientific name of the black cap is, again, Sylvia Atricapilla.

Earlier, I gave you the scientific name for the black-capped chickadee. It's Piscili Atricapilus. These birds are not close relatives, but you can hear the similarity in the second part of their scientific names, the part known as the specific epithet. Atricapilla and Atrocapilus. These words are from Latin, and they translate as black-haired. I don't know. I just find that kind of stuff interesting. Okay, and side note. A 2015 study published in the journal Global Change Biology looked at long-term data on where Eurasian black caps spend the winter. One population of this species breeds in the UK and Ireland. Those birds vacate the islands in fall, heading south. However, there are still black caps showing up at urban feeders in the UK in winter. A lot of them. What's the deal with those guys?

Well, there's actually another population that breeds in Central Europe, and those guys fly over to spend the winter in the UK. Got it? Black caps that breed in the UK leave for the winter, but they get replaced in the winter by birds that breed in Central Europe. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. More and more black caps from Central Europe have been showing up in suburban and urban areas in the UK over the last 60 years. but once upon a time those central European black caps would migrate south to Spain or Africa. The researchers in that 2015 study concluded that, yes, global warming is making it easier for black caps to hang out all winter in parts of the UK and even in places further north.

But the availability of supplemental food in British gardens is definitely playing a big part too. You might remember that for songbirds like the Eurasian black cap, migratory behavior is hardwired. These birds are born with the genetically programmed instinct for when and where to go during migration. So what we're witnessing is a genetic change in the central European population, an evolutionary change. Other research has shown that great tits in the UK are also evolving in response to supplementary feeding. Compared to great tits over on mainland Europe, those in the UK have longer bills. And they're getting longer generation after generation. Scientists have even identified the genes associated with those longer bills.

And finally, those same researchers showed that great tits with the long bills use feeders significantly more often and have higher fitness than short-billed tits. so by offering food to birds like this we can alter the very courses of their evolution and if you ask me that's a pretty serious consequence but are the changes to bird communities migration and evolution we've been discussing necessarily bad again if you don't like the idea of human activities messing with the biology of wild animals then yeah you'd probably agree that such effect are in the bad category. I'd say I lean toward that way of thinking. I'd rather things be as natural

as possible without interference from humans. But that hasn't stopped me from hanging bird feeders in my yard, has it? Am I a terrible person? A despicable hypocrite? Perhaps. Now, as we've been discussing the downsides of feeding wild birds

for the last ten minutes or so, there's something I haven't mentioned yet, something that might be the single worst, most dreadful effect of putting bird feeders in our yards. What I'm talking about is, of course, providing sustenance, however unintentionally, to those mangy, glassy-eyed goblins known as squirrels. That's right, squirrels, the flea-ridden bane of all that is good in the world. All you want to do is feed some poor little hungry birds.

but then here comes one of those relentless scheming squirrels to steal as much bird seed as it can stuff into its stupid cheeks. Bird seed that isn't cheap, I might add. Many scientific studies have found support for the hypothesis that squirrels are, in technical terms, just the worst. If we don't stop them, squirrels might become an existential threat to humanity. Except that that isn't true because I'm just joking. And you knew I was joking, hopefully. I love squirrels. They're positively adorable.

I've got no less than four species in my own backyard. Five, if you include chipmunks. The only squirrel species I don't like seeing out there is the eastern gray squirrel, since it's not a native. And look, I know, squirrels can be annoying when they won't give up trying to pilfer every last nut from our feeders.

But like birds, squirrels are just animals trying to survive in a harsh world. We can't really blame them for that, can we? But seriously, there is one dreadful effect of bird feeding that I need to talk about, and that's disease. Birds congregate at feeders, where they come in physical contact with each other. They can also touch food and perches

sprinkled with traces of bird body fluids, like poop and saliva. This is the perfect setting for bacteria, viruses, and fungi to jump from one bird to another, through direct contact or via contaminated surfaces. Dirty bird feeders are notorious hotspots for spreading diseases among birds. One of the most common illnesses among bird feeders is salmonellosis, caused by bacteria in the genus salmonella. Other diseases birds can pick up at feeders include avian pox, housefinch-eye disease, which can also infect other songbird species, and trichomoniasis.

Any of these can be fatal. Trichomoniasis is caused by a single-celled protozoan parasite. This disease is responsible for killing enormous numbers of European greenfinches and common chaff finches in the UK over the last 15 years. Populations of these two garden birds, once very common, have plummeted. Green finches have been hit the hardest, and this species, population declined by about 70% between 2005 and 2019. The primary suspect for facilitating the spread of trichomoniasis in these finches and other songbirds is

dirty bird feeders. So I don't think anyone would argue with me when I say that the biggest problem with feeding wild birds isn't cats or windows or naughty squirrels. It's the spread of disease. One of the main reasons we put out seeds, fruit, and suet for birds is to help them. We want their tiny bellies to be full of nutritious food so they can live long, healthy lives and make lots of babies. In other words, we have good intentions. But are we killing birds with our kindness?

I hate to say it, but yes. At least sometimes. especially by making it easier for diseases to spread among them. But it's also true that the food we offer birds can benefit them. It improves the health of birds and their chances of survival. And it really does help them make lots of babies. So, should we or shouldn't we feed wild birds? Maybe you were hoping I can answer that question for you today,

so you can stop losing sleep over it. But I'm afraid you'll have to weigh the pros and cons and decide for yourself. The message we hear from most bird conservation organizations in the U.S. and the U.K. is that feeding birds is a perfectly fine activity. But there's an asterisk on that. It's fine if you follow good practices. If you decide you want to keep feeding your feathered friends, more power to you. but with great power comes great responsibility right so let's talk about how to feed birds responsibly

many of the negative effects of feeding can be mitigated with some thoughtful effort now in case you think i'm lecturing you well you're right i am but it's because i care about you and about birds but at the same time i'm reminding myself of these good practices for feeding birds First off, make sure you're feeding your birds the right food. Don't just buy the cheapest bargain bin rubbish you find at the thrift store. That stuff is full of useless filler. Do a little research on the common backyard bird species in your area and what they prefer to eat from feeders.

For example, finches love thistle seeds. Orioles are crazy about oranges and black oil sunflower seeds are a nutritious favorite of many species. Bread is a no-no. I don't care if your grandma used to toss bread to the ducks. Forget it. Grandma wasn't doing those ducks any favors because bread provides very little nutrition for birds

and can lead to health problems. Now, diseases are the biggest threat, right? So as responsible feeders of birds, it's super important that we clean out our feeding apparatuses regularly. Clean your feeders every one to two weeks. There are several ways to do this, but the professionals over at Project Feeder Watch recommend the following. 1. Take your feeder apart.

2. Scrub off any debris attached to the parts. 3. Soak everything for 10 minutes in a diluted bleach solution. 4. Then wash the parts off with soap and hot water. 5. Rinse thoroughly and let everything dry. completely. And six, slap the parts back together and you're ready to rock. That would be the normal cleaning routine. But if you find any sick birds in your yard, take down your feeders immediately and wash them really well. Before you put them back out, wait a couple weeks to make sure you don't find any more sick birds in the area. Cats! What can we do about cats? Keep them

inside. Please. I know you love your kitty and that's a beautiful thing, but cats are an enormous problem for bird populations everywhere. Besides, your cat will most likely live longer if you keep it indoors. If you have neighborhood cats lurking around that are out of your control, you might want to rethink putting bird feeders out. Or you can place your feeders high off the ground, like on a pole or something, where cats can't reach. As for bird, murdering hawks, consider taking your feeders down for a while if a hawk shows up. The raptor will probably move on in a few days if you aren't providing it with a plethora of vulnerable songbirds to mutilate. Providing hiding places for small birds can help too.

They can escape hawks by flying into bushes, brush piles, and evergreen trees. Then we have the issue of windows. My understanding is that to minimize the chances of birds slamming into your windows, you want to place your feeders more than 30 feet away from any window. At smaller distances, birds flying quickly away from the feeder don't have enough time to change direction and avoid the window. Alternatively, you can put feeders within three feet of your windows. That way, a bird leaving the feeder can't build up enough momentum to hurt itself if it does hit the window. But it seems to me that the safest option is to place feeders, well away from your house, beyond 30 feet.

You can also place special stickers on your windows that reflect UV light and will alert birds to the danger. And as many kids will tell you, few things in this world are more fun than stickers, especially scratch and sniff stickers. Are those still a thing? Man, I was out of my mind for scratch and sniff stickers when I was like nine years old. True story, I actually stole an enormous pile of stickers out of my fifth grade teacher's desk one day, when I was alone in the classroom supposedly cleaning the chalkboard. And I never got caught. But hey, kids, stealing is bad. Anyway, those bird-friendly anti-collision stickers made for your windows are, sadly, not scratch and sniff. But they do come in all sorts of whimsical shapes, like pine cones, snowflakes, dragonflies,

dragon dragons, hamburgers, and human skulls. Because birds know to head the other way when they see human skulls. In any case, you want to space the stickers or other markings on your windows close together, less than four inches apart vertically and less than two inches apart in the horizontal dimension. And they should span the entire window. There are other ways to prevent birds from smashing into our windows, and I'll go into more detail when I make that podcast episode on window collisions. But I have a couple more recommendations for how to be a good

steward of your garden birds. We know birds don't normally become dependent on the food we offer them, thankfully. But if you've been feeding them consistently, you want to make sure you keep doing so during episodes of extreme weather. Birds might suffer if you suddenly take down your feeders during a severe winter storm raging with ice, snow and frigid wind. Extreme winter storms are possibly the times when birds could use our help the most. Last but not least is the topic of native plants. This is something I'm passionate about. I said I wouldn't tell you that yes you should or no you shouldn't put food out for wild birds in your yard.

But there is an alternative I can recommend, one that in an ideal world most of us would choose instead of hanging bird feeders all over the place. And that is to fill our outdoor spaces with lots of native vegetation. In other words, plant species that have been growing in your local landscape for thousands of years. Some natives in my area, for example, include Douglas fir, vine maple, red flowering current, and Oregon grape. Native plants like this attract birds to our yards, almost like magic. That's because they meet many of our birds' habitat requirements. These plants provide shelter and nesting sites. They create micro-habitats for the insects and other invertebrates that birds eat.

Flowers, berries, and seeds from native plants are excellent sources of calories and nutrition for many bird species. Creating a bird-friendly yard or garden is more than just planting native trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers. Other elements that benefit birds include brush and rock piles and plant debris like dead leaves, and tree limbs. These things all create nooks and crannies for insects to hide in. And you want those insects to thrive because birds eat them. So reconsider using pesticides in your yard. Embrace your native invertebrate fauna. Because yeah, insects and other spineless critters are also just super cool on their own. And they're a major part of your local biodiversity. The more your yard resembles a natural habitat, the happier and healthier your birds are likely to be.

All of them, not just the handful of species that gorge themselves at feeders. By relying more on native vegetation, we help to keep the balance of species as natural as possible. Everybody wins. Here's another thing to think about when it comes to offering store-bought bird seed versus planting native vegetation. Those commercially produced seeds came from a farm somewhere, maybe a big farm. As feeding birds has exploded in popularity, growing bird seed has become big business. For example, in the U.S., over one million tons of bird seed is produced every year. This is agriculture on an industrial scale. Agriculture that exists only because natural habitats were destroyed to clear the land. Just something to think about. But we also need to be

realistic, right? Many of us would say that this isn't an ideal world. A lot of people don't actually have the option of putting native plants in their yards. Maybe you're renting your home and your crusty curmudgeon of a landlord won't allow you to convert your yard into an overgrown avian paradise. Or maybe you live in an apartment or condo with no yard or garden to speak of. If that's the case, then perhaps hanging some bird feeders for finches, chickadees, or hummingbirds on your balcony is the perfect option. Or you could have a few native plants in pots out there too, whatever works. So what can I say in conclusion? By offering birds supplemental food on a global scale, humans are changing the avian world in multiple, sometimes profound ways, for better or

worse. More scientific research on this topic will hopefully steer us in the right direction. arguably the most effective way to help your local birds and invite more of them into your space is to create natural habitat in your yard. Not only do birds benefit from this, but countless other creatures as well. Still, there are some excellent reasons for us to put out bird feeders, not the least of which is our own need to connect with nature. That is so, so important these days. But if you and I do choose to feed wild birds, we should probably accept the responsibility of doing it the right way. Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Birds podcast today.

Did you find it interesting and helpful? I hope so. I am by no means an authority on bird feeding, so please take my recommendations as just, well, recommendations. I encourage you to do your own. research on this subject if you're still not sure about all the pros and cons. As I said, I've got a few bird feeders in my yard, as well as some native plants. In researching this episode, I learned a thing or two, and I plan to improve the way I feed

birds in my yard. Eventually, I plan to remove the feeders and rely on only native plants to bring all the birds to the yard. My generous supporters on Patreon help a lot in making these episodes possible. So as always, a huge thank you to them. An enthusiastic welcome and thank you to my newest patron, Charles Foster. I'm so glad you love the show, Charles, enough to lend your support. So thank you. If you have become a fan of this podcast and would like to support me as I try to make this a real sustainable career, you can check out my Patreon page at patreon.com slash science of birds. You can also zap me an email if you you have something you'd like to share. Maybe a comment about the podcast, your thoughts on feeding

birds, or a confession about a crime you committed when you were in elementary school. In any case, my email address is Ivan at Scienceofbirds.com. You can check out the show notes for this episode, which again is number 60, on the Science of Birds website, scienceofbirds.com. This is Ivan Philipson. I hope you're having an awesome day. Peace. Thank you.