Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good? • Hacker News Board

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#41

Post by beardyw » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #19

An alternative narrative: if feeders favor dominant/ bully birds, it might help the less dominant ones by freeing up just about every other spot in the area. If you knew the high school bullies were hanging out in the gym 90% of the time, the gym is actually helping you avoid the bullies (assuming you don’t have to go to the gym).

Our bullies here in London are ring-necked parakeets. They are the most bad-tempered birds on the feeder, preferring to peck at each other, and other birds, than to actually eat. I keep one feeder with a cage over it to give the smaller birds a chance. Luckily they only come mid morning and late afternoon, so again the other birds get to eat in peace.

Spring and early summer we have breeding starlings who also cause a commotion on the feeder, but that is more of a good natured scrum, they eat very fast and disappear in seconds.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#42

Post by 11235813213455 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #27

11235813213455 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I was picky like your son when young, but fortunately I changed my diet later That's a weird statement to make after describing how you only eat very peculiar food - raw leaves, fruit and some veggies. ( Who the heck eats cucumbers nom-raw?)

right, I meant I'm not picky for the food I eat, I'll eat damaged fruit, some fresh ripe fruit from the tree with sometimes some little worms, I won't mind, or a bird bite, or one on the ground even if it looks fresh enough, that's what I meant by non-picky, not wasting stuff, eating cucumbers or zucchinis raw and with all the skin of course

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#43

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

11235813213455 wrote: post #39

Dumblydorr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, these downvotes are silly. My guess would be not rage but simple disagreement, neither of which justify downvotes. Raw garlic is very intense, I've never heard of eating that except minced in salsa. I'd also say we're not evolved for purely vegetable eating, we've had access to cooked meat from fire for probably 1-2 million years. This is one reason our brains expanded, because we gained access to richer foods…

> I'd also say we're not evolved for purely vegetable eating how come I can get all my necessary nutrients from it so? > This is one reason our brains expanded, because we gained access to richer foods like cooked meat with fat, which in turn supported more brain cognition. This also is interesting, it's definitely possible that at this time humans didn't have access to enough vegetable, it was pretty cold 1-2 millio…

My understanding of the theory is that animals which subsist on greens have a huge gut to allow for fermentation to get the calories from the fiber in the plants. Eating meat allowed our brains to grow larger and gut to shrink, since meat is more calorie dense, and the brain consumes a lot of energy.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#44

Post by 11235813213455 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #40

11235813213455 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we are omnivore like most primates, and fortunately because some human sometimes don't have anything else to eat. And meat is often better and safer cooked. I eat fish sometimes, but very rarely (2-3x/year), it's not about vegan, it's about unprocessed food (fruits, and most vegetable don't need to be cooked, and it's drastically reducing their benefits to do it). I think it's something people have to experience…

Your hypothesis seems to be that the invention of cooking made us unhealthier? That seems unlikely.

Are you referring to the situation 1-2 millions years ago when human brain size expanded? The sitatuion back then and now are not comparable. Just like inuits don't eat much plant-based food, like I said they had no choice, they needed fire to warm themselves, they needed food, any food in their different climate at that time. We can't transpose this situation now, we can grow more various vegetables, we can get all the nutrients from them, and actually more than meat

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#45

Post by birbs » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #19

An alternative narrative: if feeders favor dominant/ bully birds, it might help the less dominant ones by freeing up just about every other spot in the area. If you knew the high school bullies were hanging out in the gym 90% of the time, the gym is actually helping you avoid the bullies (assuming you don’t have to go to the gym).

Only in the short term. The additional food allows for additional bullies to survive, so now the bullies occupy their old stomping ground AND the bird feeder. And of course the new bullies need nesting sites that they’ll happily take from submissive birds.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#46

Post by 11235813213455 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #37

11235813213455 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes switching too fast is dangerous for someone without a good vitality Of course people should do it gradually, and about b12 deficiency, someone eating mostly raw food will have lower levels (compared to the "health norm") but it's mostly because we need less of it, we can produce it naturally, and do so only when necessary. It's in French but someone like Florian Gomet explains this fact well. Why would I be defic…

I haven't been able to find any reputable sources about your claim "we can produce it naturally", which sets off my bullshit detector for your entire claim. You might be more successful if you support what you say with sources.

> It (B12) is synthesized by some bacteria in the gut flora in humans and other animals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#:~:text=It%20is%20...

so yea not directly by us, but by our guts flora, you validate it?

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#47

Post by lmilcin » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

pvaldes wrote: post #13

lmilcin wrote: post #8

If 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.

Hum, I don't think so. Even with a few birds dying, as long as they are replenished routinely bird feeders are definitely good for winter survivorship in birds. Birds that evolved in Central Europe don't die by winter if they can find a constant supply of food. Can choose to do a shorter migration and overwinter in northern areas and this is good for the survival of young birds. Urban areas are warmer also. Migrating…

There is a lot of migratory birds that just can't survive winter, let alone harsh one, even when fed.

Some have evolved in much warmer climate (a lot of migratory birds from Europe evolved in Africa) and never evolved to survive winter.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#48

Post by Ensorceled » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #37

11235813213455 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes switching too fast is dangerous for someone without a good vitality Of course people should do it gradually, and about b12 deficiency, someone eating mostly raw food will have lower levels (compared to the "health norm") but it's mostly because we need less of it, we can produce it naturally, and do so only when necessary. It's in French but someone like Florian Gomet explains this fact well. Why would I be defic…

I haven't been able to find any reputable sources about your claim "we can produce it naturally", which sets off my bullshit detector for your entire claim. You might be more successful if you support what you say with sources.

They are completely wrong. There is some b12 generated by our gut bacteria but it is too low in the digestive track to be effectively absorbed. There is a reason vegans eat foods enriched in b vitamins.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#49

Post by Ensorceled » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #36

11235813213455 wrote: post #4

I 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…

>Our ideal food is... This is probably why you're getting downvotes; it's the idealism and certainty with which you determine a human's ideal diet. We cannot say with certainty what the ideal human diet is. And what's ideal for one group isn't ideal for another. For example: most Northern Europeans are adapted to digest fresh milk while East Asians are not. I can't say with certainty what the best human diet is. But…

Vegans must eat some foods enriched with b vitamins to survive so they are not really on a plants only diet either. An entirely raw food, plant only diet leads to a horrible death due to b12 deficiency.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#50

Post by jstrH » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 3:17 PM UTC

birbs wrote: post #5

foxhop wrote: post #3

If 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?

Oh well.

It would be an “issue” without the awareness.

Having awareness does not mean humans can/must stop being human.

At least a permaculture garden is an attempt at self providing utilitarian effort.

A bird feeder is just a low effort spectator sport with one outcome.