Feeding Birds in Winter
The recent article from Bragg Creek Wild discussed feeding birds in winter. Essentially, it discouraged feeding birds, but also provided some good tips on how to do it. I would like to provide information from Cornell University. Cornell developed the excellent Merlin and eBird apps for bird identification and citizen science recording of bird sightings. They are a major research center for birds. On the winter bird feeding topic, they say:
Is feeding wild birds a good thing? Jones: There are many examples of how birds are benefiting from feeding—no question at all that they are more likely to survive winter if they get fed. [Some] species that may be having a hard time, especially in an urban environment, benefit from the food they find in people’s yards. Greig: Some of the good aspects are that there are studies showing that feeding birds increases survival during particularly harsh conditions. So, in the dead of winter when there’s snow covering everything and it’s super super cold, birds benefit from being able to come to feeders and being able to get some suet or black oil sunflower seeds, something nice and fattening. Cornell also offers an excellent resource at FeederWatch.Org where people with bird feeders can participate in citizen science by providing their observations of birds at their feeders.
Keep birding.
Rick Courtney
