Feeding Wild Birds in Winter - Squaring the popular practice with conservation ethics

By Sherry Lyons

I love feeding birds in the wintertime! Seeing their colorful plumage against the snow - the cardinals, cedar waxwings, bluebirds and woodpeckers are brilliant. They keep me entertained with their antics, pushing each other off the perches in order to get to the sunflower seeds and mealworms, fluffed up against the cold. Their calls are unique and easily recognizable when you really listen, chickadees and downy woodpeckers making a happy counterpoint in the music of my day. But lately I have been thinking…you are not supposed to feed animals at the zoo, or wild animals like deer, bear, skunks, or raccoons. We don’t want to make a nuisance of them, and some can be dangerous to us or our pets if we encourage them. So why do we make an allowance for feeding birds that overwinter with us? I decided to look into the pros and cons of this practice.

I checked on several websites, and found some very interesting information. For example, on a blog entitled “Cool Green Science” from the Nature Conservancy, it was reported that up to 40% of households in the U.S. and up to 75% of the households in the U.K. feed birds. There have been several studies to determine whether feeding birds in winter is good or bad for them, and the overwhelming results have been that it is a beneficial practice. There were, however, two that were done in the U.K. that showed that birds that were fed in the winter had smaller clutches with less surviving chicks. You can read about possible reasons that the scientists posited here, although that was outside the scope of their study.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has an article called “To Feed or Not to Feed Wild Birds- Bird Feeders Can Be Sources of Joy — and Disease.” The main idea of the article is “There’s just one problem for bird lovers: how to square the popular practice with conservation ethics.”

Feeding birds comes with responsibilities! If you are going to feed wild birds, you should do your best to clean your bird feeders every two weeks. Birds sharing feeders can also share salmonella and E. coli with each other. Newer feeders can be taken apart and cleaned, but with older feeders you may have to resort to pouring a weak bleach solution through them, and in either case, rinse and dry thoroughly. It is also a good idea to clean up underneath the feeder as this can reduce the risk of skunks and raccoons coming to clean up. I find that my chickens and visiting squirrels, as well as some ground feeding birds like mourning doves, do a very good job of that every day.

If you own an outdoor cat, or cats come to visit your yard, you might think twice about having a feeder. Predators like cats kill 2.5 billion birds each year in North America - we don’t need to be adding to the mayhem! Hawks are another danger, as they can become attuned to the regular visitors to your bird feeders and come pick them off at will. Finally, collisions with windows are a definite risk to birds. Put your bird feeder within 2-3 feet of your house - so the bird is coming in slowly to land on the feeder, or 10 or more feet away. You can also put decals especially designed to reduce bird collisions on your windows. There are other suggestions on the American Bird Conservancy website with an article entitled “Preventing Glass Collisions.”

All that said, feeding birds can introduce children and adults to the wonders of nature in their backyard, maybe encouraging them to go further afield for more birding adventures. Feeding birds in the fall and winter can aid them in survival during migration and over harsh winters. It may help some of us by mitigating the guilt we feel at the destruction of habitats from human habitation, from houses to malls. That said, another option, instead of or in addition to using feeders, is to plant native varieties of flowers and bushes on which birds feed. Goldenrod, brown-eyed Susan, sumac, chokeberry, and spicebush, as well as nesting cover, are all ways to provide natural food and shelter for wild birds. Enjoy our winter birds responsibly!