Feeding birds, benefits eaters and feeders alike. Contributed / Rachel Lovejoy
There really is no time of the year when feeding birds isn’t productive and rewarding. Winter, spring, summer or fall … once the birds know there is something to eat, they’ll spread the word and start flocking to feeders. I’m not sure how it happens. Does one bird find the treasure trove and subsequently alert the others? Is there something in the black-capped chickadee’s “dee-deedee” that translates into “Food-food-food?” I’ll never know, as I don’t speak avian. But it obviously doesn’t take long for birds to start arriving from miles around when a new buffet opens up somewhere.
And that’s just for starters. Only others who feed birds will know what I’m talking about when I say that spotting a new bird is a pretty special event. It’s not unreasonable to say that it is almost a sacred moment when a new species makes an appearance, one that doesn’t normally frequent feeders but is there out of curiosity or perhaps even extreme hunger. This is most likely to happen
during the winter, when our snow-covered world doesn’t have much to offer in the form of sustenance. A bird feeder can make all the difference between life or death for creatures that depend entirely on food to stay warm enough to survive during the coldest months of the year.
During the last few years, researchers have increasingly found that, not only does feeding birds do them a service, but the activity is also highly beneficial to whoever is filling the feeders, in particular, seniors and anyone over the age of 60 whose lives have narrowed to daily essentials and for whom bird behavior provides a special type of joy. Watching birds at feeders is thought to lower blood pressure, relieve stress and improve mood. And what a thrill it is when a new one decides to visit, as a new and special bond develops between us and nature.
According to Australian scientist Darryl Jones, author of the book “Birds at My Table: Why We Feed Wild Birds and Why it Matters,” feeding birds emerges from a complex thought process that involves people wanting to give something back to an environment that has been abused and damaged. Birds are a vital part of that environment, and feeding them provides people with a sense of purpose and of actually doing something to help.
According to Jones in an interview with the Cornell University Lab in 2018, bird-feeding has become a billion-dollar industry, both in the areas of money spent on feeders as well as on seed.
That’s here in the United States, but Jones believed the figures would be similar in Europe. As for what people get out of doing it, reasons can range from doing something for the environment to wanting to learn more about birds by bringing them closer. The result of all this is often an improvement in a person’s spiritual, physical and psychological well-being, which is particularly crucial in older people who have plenty of time on their hands and who often suffer from the effects of social isolation and loneliness.
One would think that, with this information at hand, more social agencies would latch on to this wisdom and put it to use in their senior outreach work. More specifically, property managers who oversee the day-to-day activities at senior communities might take steps to incorporate this into their mission to provide safe, enjoyable and emotionally fulfilling places to live, thereby earning kudos, not only for making seniors’ lives happier but also for doing something for the environment at a time when climate change is thought to be wreaking havoc on birds as well as other wild animals.
But, sadly, such is not the case, as some of these properties ban the use of bird-feeders with the reasoning that bird food attracts other unwanted species such as mice and rats. That isn’t an unreasonable assumption until you factor in the reality that, what one bird won’t eat, another will. So there is usually very little, if anything, left for other animals to get at.
If bird feeders are placed high enough off the ground, rodents cannot reach the food. And if any unwanted food falls to the ground, it won’t be there long before another hungry ground-feeding bird comes along to claim it. This is doubly true in the winter, when the soil is covered with snow and food is scarce to nonexistent.
Of course there are ways to help the environment that don’t involve bird feeders and disgruntled property managers. But in these very troubling and uncertain times, doesn’t it just make good common sense to provide as many folks as possible with ways to forget all the turmoil and reconnect with nature, where turmoil does not exist?
It’s not a stretch to say that the world we currently live in is in pretty rough shape right now, both politically and environmentally. But those are topics best left to the so-called experts, or at least to those who are more qualified than I am to comment on them. One thing I do know is this: when things are at their lowest, the only other way to go is up. And we shouldn’t be at all surprised to find, when we finally arrive, a few grateful little birds waiting for us to refill the feeders.
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