Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
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Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#2The paper mentioned in the article, Killing with kindness: Does widespread generalised provisioning of wildlife help or hinder biodiversity conservation efforts?, can be found here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#3If you use Permaculture Principles you will exponentially grown biomass and animals including birds which visit your plot daily.
I don't have a bird feeder and yet a huge variety of birds feed on my garden.
It's just a matter of selectively sparing some plants over others.
For example many small birds will eat kale and brasica seeds which are tiny and black like a poppy and each plant produces a huge abundance.
Another favorite I noticed among the small birds is wild Lambs Quarter seeds, same thing, thousands of small seed per plant.
And if you really can't help yourself, you could learn about animal husbandry and raise chickens for eggs, they love to have about 20% of their diet as scratch grains. I like to ferment and sprout the dried grains to make it easier for my hens digestion. Did you know chickens are omnivores and eat nearly all the same foods as humans? No wonder we keep them around, they literally eat all the left overs!
For more details check out this video:
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#4I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries
I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesting since million years
edit: I can understand my comment is unpopular since I'm saying most people diet is inappropriate as well, but instead of rage downvoting, try to phrase why you disagree
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#5If you use Permaculture Principles you will exponentially grown biomass and animals including birds which visit your plot daily. I don't have a bird feeder and yet a huge variety of birds feed on my garden. It's just a matter of selectively sparing some plants over others. For example many small birds will eat kale and brasica seeds which are tiny and black like a poppy and each plant produces a huge abundance. Anoth…
The mechanism described in the article is that human assistance benefits more dominant species over less dominant ones, which increases the dominant species population and further suppresses the less dominant species. How is your garden fundamentally different than using a bird feeder regarding this specific interaction?
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#6I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…
My teenage son is a picky eater, still thinks unbleached wheat bread sandwich crust tastes bad. I used to feel like it was a waste to toss, still felt bad to compost, now that I feed the crust to my hens and see how they light up, I no longer feel bad.
As for garlic in the raw, I'm glad you can eat that, I can as well but my wife absolutely cannot eat garlic even though she does enjoy the taste.
If you really love garlic check out this authentic Italian process and techniques in this video, I was pleasantly surprised:
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#7If you use Permaculture Principles you will exponentially grown biomass and animals including birds which visit your plot daily. I don't have a bird feeder and yet a huge variety of birds feed on my garden. It's just a matter of selectively sparing some plants over others. For example many small birds will eat kale and brasica seeds which are tiny and black like a poppy and each plant produces a huge abundance. Anoth…
The mechanism described in the article is that human assistance benefits more dominant species over less dominant ones, which increases the dominant species population and further suppresses the less dominant species. How is your garden fundamentally different than using a bird feeder regarding this specific interaction?
The type and size of seed. Larger birds focus on larger (higher energy) seed sold at the stores.
The plants I select to go to seed have small seeds and feed small birds.
Just one of many observations I've had the pleasure of collecting anecdotal evidence on.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#8If these are migratory birds, then it is possible you are going to kill them by keeping them feeding while they should be migrating.
We have this problem here in Poland
Then you find birds dead because they are not adapted to surviving the winter.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#9I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…
My teenage son is a picky eater, still thinks unbleached wheat bread sandwich crust tastes bad. I used to feel like it was a waste to toss, still felt bad to compost, now that I feed the crust to my hens and see how they light up, I no longer feel bad. As for garlic in the raw, I'm glad you can eat that, I can as well but my wife absolutely cannot eat garlic even though she does enjoy the taste. If you really love ga…
I definitely prefer to eat garlic raw, you can let it in your mouth for a while, saliva will make it less strong. But cooking it is killing too much of its important macro-nutriments. I don't eat pastas or other starch because with experience I feel like they're "glueing" my digestive system and make digestion less efficient. My diet is mostly fruit currently (tons of free figs along my rides, persimmons, clementines, grapes), tomatoes from a local producer, all kind of edible plant leaves (e.g. common purslane, kale, onion leaves, leek leaves..), everything raw actually since many years. Even bell pepper, cucumbers, zucchinis I eat them "raw" (in quotes because technically fruits and this stuff are already somewhat cooked by the sun, and later by our digestive system), you can feel some taste that wouldn't exist anymore when they're cooked, it requires to chew more, and with time, the situation completely change, you don't like anymore cooked products
It's great that you have a garden, I hope you'll grow some stuff. I was picky like your son when young, but fortunately I changed my diet later
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The mechanism described in the article is that human assistance benefits more dominant species over less dominant ones, which increases the dominant species population and further suppresses the less dominant species. How is your garden fundamentally different than using a bird feeder regarding this specific interaction?
The type and size of seed. Larger birds focus on larger (higher energy) seed sold at the stores. The plants I select to go to seed have small seeds and feed small birds. Just one of many observations I've had the pleasure of collecting anecdotal evidence on.
I don’t think the size of the bird is particularly relevant as birds of the same size compete for the same nesting sites. The article gives the example of blue tits dominating willow and marsh tits by hoarding the bird feeder and kicking them out of their nesting sites. Both the willow and marsh tit are slightly bigger than the blue tit. It seems to me that your garden would also have this issue.