Feeding the birds..
I just this week went out and bought a supply of bird seed having run out some time ago. The garden is now awash with blue, great and coal tits, nuthatches, house sparrows, a spotted woodpecker if it’s cold and one jackdaw, oh and the pheasants and partridge cleaning up after everyone. Every time I top up on bird feed I wonder if I'm really doing the right thing. If I’m being really honest with myself, I know that I’m feeding the birds for my own enjoyment of seeing them and the life they fill the garden with, and although I hope that in feeding the birds that visit the feeders I am making their lives a little easier, this is contrasted by the knowledge that I am probably upsetting the natural order of things.
Wild birds eat different things according to their species and the food that we supply in our garden bird feeders favours only some of our wild birds. I can’t help noticing also that almost all of the seeds and nuts supplied in bought bird food are non-native, which acts as another clue for me that we are disturbing the natural balance as the nutrient values of these foods are different from wild food. Studies on blue tits by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) show there is evidence to suggest that the higher fat content of garden bird food from feeders creates weaker offspring with a lower fledgling success rate.
Another perhaps more important reason that supplementary feeding of wild birds could be problematic is that it creates an imbalance in competition. Blue tits and great tits for example, are dominant species, often winning fights for the available food on feeders that they are adept at using, this advantage will impact on subordinate species whose numbers are in decline such as willow and marsh tits, that a 2021 study in Biology Conservation, has shown lose nearly half of their nesting sites to blue tits. Also our many migrating birds that come back in spring suffer this same disadvantage. To add to this the spread of many disease epidemics among birds that visit our gardens are attributed to garden feeders.
If I look around my local area there is a good chance that in this rural Wiltshire location, the birds have a lot of ‘natural’ food in ready supply.
In my garden, taking my cue from the natural surroundings, I am trying to grow more of the natural food of wild birds, leaving the seed heads or buds for the birds to enjoy. I notice that goldfinches are particularly attracted to the seed heads of marsh thistle and that blue tits happily munch on hazel buds. I leave ivy unclipped to supply nutritious berries with a good supply of fat. The author in the above report suggests ‘wildlife gardening as an alternative to feeders - that is, leaving part of our gardens wild or planting native trees and seasonal fruits, seeds and berries’. These, he said, ‘would be more likely to encourage natural feeding and with a wider variety of foods for different species’. Leaving the seedheads of plants such as lesser knapweed, teasels, purple loosestrife, yarrow and meadowsweet, to mention just a few, that look great in the garden would be an easy win in helping to supply wild birds with some supplementary natural food at the times they most need it whilst also fulfilling our desire to see birds in our gardens.
We may well consider supplementary feeding during the coldest periods of winter, when calories are much needed, and at the height of the nesting season when birds are expending a lot of energy gathering insects to feed their young.
My gut feeling though, about anything where we are ‘helping’ nature, is to stay as close to the root, if you forgive the pun, of the original natural system as we can.
Photo by Lidia Stawinska
