Goodbye to bird feeders?

 It may be time to take down my bird feeders for good. I’ve been feeding birds in the garden for at least 30 years. I love watching our local downy woodpecker feeding upside down on the suet feeder. When a goldfinch happens by in spring and perches on the nyjer seed feeder, it makes my day.  

 

Goldfinches like small seeds of coneflowers and (thistle-like) nyjer-photo Rob Amend

    So why change this longstanding habit? First I learned that I could be poisoning hummingbirds by offering them infected or moldy sugar solution unless I emptied, cleaned and refilled the feeder every couple of days. That was more than I could promise, so I took that feeder down. 

Hummingbirds are safer on native cardinal flower than at my feeder

Then I stopped filling the seed feeders in the warm months. I read that I could feed birds more sustainably by choosing plants that produce seeds they can eat. That gave me a reason to add more native plants to the yard, always a welcome opportunity. And more diverse native plantings did seem to attract more birds.

 

Native coralberry will attract lots of birds-photo Servernjc

    This winter, though, I told myself that birds could use some extra seed to sustain them through the cold months. I filled my favorite feeders: a big oblong hopper with a weighted bar to close off the seed supply when a squirrel lands on it and a house-shaped suet feeder with a mesh-covered floor for clingers who feed upside down, like nuthatches and woodpeckers.

 

This battered bird feeder does keep squirrels out

Once the food was on offer, birds soon arrived, alighting on tree branches and inside twiggy shrubs, checking for predators and competitors before darting over to the feeders to grab a quick meal. 

    Unfortunately, my bird feeders could be superspreader locations, where birds come in contact with deadly infectious agents. Wildlife observers are reporting increased deaths of migratory finches caused by salmonella infection, possibly an unintended consequence of homebound bird lovers filling more feeders during the pandemic. Disease-causing microbes shared at bird feeders include bacteria, protozoa, fungi and viruses.

 

Pine siskin, one of the affected species-photo Cephas

 
    To avoid spreading infection, experts advise cleaning your feeder every one to two weeks, scrubbing it with soap and water and then soaking it in diluted bleach. Seed and seed hulls that fall to the ground, they declare, should be swept up in case they carry disease. Ideally, I shouldn’t put out more than two days’ worth of seed at a time, so that it’ll stay clean until it’s eaten. Even that stone birdbath I’ve been keeping filled is supposed to be scrubbed out and sterilized regularly.

 

The bird bath in May

    When I found a dead junco on the ground, I got the message: this is serious. I like feeding the birds, but I don’t want them to die for my amusement. 

 

Dark-eyed juncos visit frequently in winter

 I know myself well enough to realize I’m not going to bring those feeders indoors to clean them every two weeks through the winter. And I’m uncomfortable about the environmental impact of manufacturing chlorine bleach. It’s time to let our birds forage for themselves. In future, I’ll leave the bird feeders to those more committed to cleanliness. Instead, I’ll be planting more shrubs and perennials with berries and edible seeds.

 

American black elderberry offers lots of fruit for birds

 

Not starving, but thanks anyway

Is my face red! I just understood why scientists at Cornell Lab for Ornithology look down on backyard bird feeding. An article in the Native Plant Trust’s magazine finally put it in terms I couldn’t misunderstand. Birds aren’t starving, even in winter.

House finch in the snow-photo Steve Ryan

    Christopher Leahy of Mass Audubon surmises that the idea that wild birds need food was promulgated in the late 19th century, when conservationists wanted the public to think kindly about birds and stop killing them to decorate ladies’ hats with their plumes. 

Feathers in hats used to be de rigeur-photo Christies

Now we Americans buy 3 billion pounds of food for wild birds annually. Leahy says it’s OK to fill your birdfeeders if you wish, as long as you understand that you’re doing it for your own amusement, not because the birds can’t get by without the food.

Backyard birds like this blue jay are fun to see up close-photo Frank Schulenburg

    I have to admit that was a letdown. I’m a feeder—one of those mothers who expresses love by preparing loved ones’ favorite dishes. So I easily convinced myself that birds needed my help. Hearing that habitat loss was affecting birds just added to my conviction. I’d hate to have to spend the winter outdoors, since I hate to be cold. Wouldn’t the birds feel the same way? And what could they be finding to eat?

Food is love

    Fortunately for the birds, they’ve evolved strategies to get through the winter, as I’d have realized if I’d thought about it. Leahy assures readers that birds aren’t freezing out there. They have insulating feathers. And they’re used to gathering provisions from their winter habitat.

Northern mockingbirds finds berries to eat-photo Matt MacGillivray

    What I can do for backyard birds, Leahy reminded me, is to imitate wild places when I plant and maintain my garden. He argues for messiness. I’m with him there. Thickets and tangles of tree branches provide shelter and protection for birds. Some birds can find insects in those piles of leaves I’ve left on the ground. Others eat fruit from native shrubs, trees and vines. Still others like to find flower heads gone to seed on stalks that haven’t been cut down. Hummingbirds collect nectar from trumpet-shaped flowers.

Hummingbird sipping nectar from cardinal flower

    Last summer I planted a cross-vine (Bignonia capreolata) for this very purpose: to provide nectar and pollen for hummingbirds and native insects. I read that this vine will grow vigorously, so I planted it against the garage where it can get at least a half day’s sun. I’m hoping that in a few years, the garage and a nearby pergola over the garden gate will be covered with the vine’s waxy leaves and orange flowers with yellow throats. Cross-vine is native farther south, so a winter cold snap could kill it to the ground, but I’m told it will recover fast and keep on blooming.

I hope my cross-vine will look this good-photo David J. Stang

    I’ve already got two trumpet honeysuckle vines (Lonicera sempervirens) that are growing strongly and producing trumpet-shaped flowers. A trumpetcreeper (Campsis radicans) promises to add some yellow trumpet flowers once it gets old enough to bloom. I hope last summer’s hummingbird will be back to claim these vines next year.

Trumpet honeysuckle

 

 

Happy New Year!

Winter rations, summer forage

Coming to you through the miracle of voice recognition software, I thought I’d reflect this week on changes I’ve made in my policy toward feeding birds. For several years I filled two bird feeders every week. Then I read Gardening for the Birds, by George Adams.

    Adams recommends growing plants that feed birds and provide them with shelter. 

Cedar waxwing eating fruit of a native serviceberry

He’s not a fan of bird feeders in the warm months. He points out that bird feeders can attract aggressive birds and invasive bird species like European sparrows that hog all the food and drive away shyer birds. Rodents attracted by birdseed may eat eggs and baby birds.

    To tell the truth, I was beginning to feel that birds were eating us out of house and home. Flocks of European sparrows showed up every time I filled the feeders and snapped up all the food within a few hours. While I regard individual sparrows as having a legitimate right to live, even if their ancestors are not from North America, I was attracting too many of them and not feeding other species I’d like to welcome to my yard.

One sparrow is endearing. Twenty take over a bird feeder.

    Following Adams’ advice, I started to emphasize trees, shrubs, and perennials whose fruit and seeds would provide food for birds. I already had some of them: balsam fir (Abies balsemea), shadblow (Amelanchier arborea), trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), and lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum). I added American elder (Sambucus canadensis) and American cranberry (Viburnum trilobum) for more bird-friendly fruit.

Mockingbird finds winter berries

    While I was choosing native perennials to attract native insects, I threw in some Eastern purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), sunflowers (Helianthus species), and milkweeds (Ascelepias species), whose seeds birds could eat.

Purple coneflower seeds feed goldfinches

    One of Adams’ warnings was that birds might become dependent on food from feeders. If I suddenly stopped putting out seed, perhaps they would starve. I was interested to read an article in this month’s Atlantic that cites a Wisconsin study showing this didn’t happen in a population of black-capped chickadees. 

Black-capped chickadee--photo Alain Wolf

Researchers compared mortality among birds accustomed to getting some of their food from feeders and birds that foraged completely on their own. When feeder food stopped being available, the birds that had been fed did just as well as they had before. They were only taking 21 percent of their food from the feeders, continuing to forage widely despite this food source.  Bird feeders did help the chickadees get through the worst winter weather.

Bird feeders help birds survive the coldest days

    Scientists have also found that birdseed provided by humans is influencing birds’ evolution. Species are developing heavier beaks for opening sunflower seeds they find at feeders but not in their natural habitat.

    This year I’m putting out birdseed only in winter. I was happy to see that the native birds soon reappeared at the feeders this December, but the European sparrows aren’t back. I can’t judge yet whether more birds or bird species have been attracted by my plantings. All I can say is, there are lots of birds flitting around in spring and summer. I hope I’m heading in the right direction.

A sight I'd like to see

Skip the fall clean-up

It used to be good gardening practice to clean up your flower beds in fall. We cut perennials to the ground with the theory that leaving their stems standing would provide shelter for insects. How gardeners’ perspectives have changed!

    Now much of what I do in my garden is aimed at providing that very shelter, as well as food, for native insects. That means I shouldn’t cut down my perennials in the fall. I’m unlearning the habit, although my pruner hand still tends to twitch when I see those “messy” stalks.

Ox eye sunflower seeds and stalks will provide winter food and shelter for insects

    There’s a conflict between some of my favorite garden authorities regarding this fall clean-up issue. At the popular blog Garden Rant, Elizabeth Licata writes that tree leaves shouldn’t lie in yards through the winter because they “smother plants and soil.” All I can say is that I haven’t found this to be a problem.

    Elizabeth doesn’t want to get involved in shredding leaves, which I can understand. It’s work, but for me it’s well worthwhile. I like converting leaves into shreds that make pretty, useful mulch. 

Shredded leaves make useful mulch

Because of what I’ve learned this year, though, I’m shredding less this fall and leaving more leaves whole.

    I just discovered that another trusted authority, Jessica Walliser, is contributing to a site and newsletter at Savvy Gardening. I’d already learned from Jessica’s book Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden that winter stalks, leaves, and berries provide needed shelter for over-wintering insects. Her post “Six reasons NOT to clean up the garden this fall” provides useful detail. 

    Did you know that some butterflies pass the winter here as adults, some in chrysalises, and some as caterpillars? 

Black swallowtail chrysalis. Photo by S. Detwiler

All of these forms could be depending on us to leave them some leaf litter or hollow stems for winter quarters. Jessica advocates letting whole leaves lie to avoid cutting up insects sheltering among them.

    Then there’s the matter of winter food for birds. I’ve spent a fortune on birdseed that’s mostly snapped up by nonnative English sparrows. Both Jessica and George Adams, author of Gardening for the Birds, point out that birds can find more varied food in our yards if we’ll garden with them in mind. I’ve been working on providing a bird menu of berries and seeds on native shrubs and perennials. 

Native winterberry provides food for birds

It’s interesting to hear that hibernating insects are also food for birds such as chickadees that forage for them through the winter. 

    There’s a seeming conflict between trying to help insects survive and offering them as food for birds. But in fact these are part of the same goal. The idea is to grow plants as food and shelter for a large and varied population of insects, so many that birds can eat their fill and still leave enough for other ecological roles, such as pollination and predation.

This green lacewing eats herbivorous insects

     Jessica’s book explains in fascinating detail how predator insects can help keep your garden’s population of leaf-eaters in balance. That’s yet another reason to leave the welcome mat out for insects in winter.