The Birds at my Table

by Darryl Jones

  Among many things, Piotr is interested in the differences between species, sexes, and even individuals in their eagerness to approach feeders. “I suspect we will discover that particular birds have personality traits which mean that they are more likely to take risks and be first at the feeder. If these birds breed better, survive longer, and pass their traits on to the next generation, it could mean that feeding is producing a ‘feeder personality’: birds that dominate in gardens and keep out the others. But we need to do a lot of careful research first.” This was but one of many dimensions of future research into the implications of wild bird feeding I learned from Piotr. As we discussed these questions over a customary late-night beverage, Piotr’s new research program seemed a natural extension of a common and important traditional practice for the Poles. Although a few new products may have been added recently (new seed mixes, different feeder designs), this has been a long-established activity in Poland, and something I was keen to experience for myself. Unfortunately my visit was just too early. “Sorry, my friend,” consoled my host. “Feeding starts usually on the first day of December around here, maybe a little earlier if we get a lot of snow.” In Poland, many traditions are changing, but not this one. “It’s only in winter, only when it’s really cold! Everyone knows that!”

  Cold it is, a lot, in the Alpine village of Niederthai in the mountainous Tyrol region of Austria, the childhood home of Ann Göth, a friend and collaborator of mine. This wonderfully picturesque location has attracted tourists for hundreds of years, who come to ski or enjoy the dramatic scenery during the short summer. But visitors typically stay only briefly; living permanently at 1600 meters (5200 feet) is challenging for both people and animals. Now living in a very different setting in Australia, Ann recalls her childhood experiences: “Bird feeding when I was young? Yes, it was certainly done, but more often in the towns and not so much in the rural villages in those days. Where I grew up we had snow for at least six months of the year, and when it was really cold we would see the birds gathering seed from the cattle food. I remember that feeding was mainly for the tourists visiting the chalets; they used those netted balls with fat and sunflower seeds in them. But there were also places where the hunters fed deer and wild boar in the winter, and the birds often got a good feed from those feeding stations. I loved to stand quietly near these places, just to watch the birds on many occasions, often scaring nearby skiers who thought I was a gnome from the woods.”

  Ann’s friend and colleague Monika Rhodes grew up in a suburb of Es-slingen in southern Germany, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Ann’s Austrian village and in a much more human-dominated landscape. During a recent get-together in Sydney, I was able to briefly interrupt their conversation to ask about their childhood experiences of bird feeding. Having listened to Ann’s description of feeding in Austria, Monika was keen to add her perspective: “We had a wonderful birdhouse feeder built in the style of an Austrian mountain house (just like the real houses in Ann’s village) where one could open the roof to fill the inside with seeds— sunflowers and other birdseeds. My father took great care to clean it and fill it up during the snowy winter months. We had it on our balcony and watched the birds feeding while we had breakfast or lunch in our dining room. I grew up with binoculars and a bird book next to our dinner table, so every time we saw a new bird we quickly tried to identify it.

  “We ensured that we only fed the approved birdseeds recommended by our local bird watching group [deutscher Vogelschutzbund] where I was a junior member for many years,” continued Monika. “We hardly ever fed the birds with the netted balls Ann describes (though sometimes did so in very cold long winters, usually for the tits). We were told that the fat was the wrong type and not good for birds and hence did not put these balls out. We never fed them for long periods as back then the recommendation was that the birds needed to look after themselves. So feeding was mainly during the snowy cold months when food was hard to get. However, I think my father secretly enjoyed having the wildlife around the house and may have fed them longer than needed. Still, as a young conservationist I always tried to educate my parents! Feeding birds in summer and from the hand was not done and rather frowned upon.”

  These observations, from the present and the past, may be simply personal and anecdotal, but they also illustrate the traditional view of wild bird feeding in Europe: in most places, it is still a practice conducted during the winter only. As described in the previous chapter, in a clear majority of countries where feeding is widely practiced, winter-only feeding is definitely the norm. It is a practice regulated by various mainly informal “rules” or expectations of local communities, some so entrenched that they probably qualify as national traditions, while there are also more formal guidelines from conservation and bird groups. I have emphasized this point perhaps too much, but it is important to appreciate that for a significant proportion of the feeding world, the provisioning of wild birds is, quite explicitly, winter feeding.

  The realization, therefore, that a movement toward all-year-round feeding is rapidly gaining ground would certainly be disturbing to many, especially European, feeders. Although this has been occurring for some time in North America and the United Kingdom, for much of Europe such a fundamental change would seem unlikely or even unthinkable. Therefore, the popularity of a serious book advocating the complete abandon-ment of the winter-only tradition and instead promoting bird feeding throughout the year is, for some people, genuinely shocking.

  Vögel füttern, aber richtig (“Feed Birds, but Correctly”), by Peter Berthold and Gabriele Mohr,1 appeared in Germany in 2006 accompanied by an unprecedented level of publicity and comment for a bird book. As expected, there was concerted opposition, especially from within scientific circles, but generally strong support from feeders and bird watchers.2 What made this publication stand out from the many look-alike gardening and hobby books was the authority of its writers and especially its audacity. The senior author was Professor Peter Berthold, a renowned ornithologist and specialist on bird migration, and he did not hide his mission. The book’s subheading blatantly declared: “Feed all year!” This was clearly provocative, yet it struck a chord with the German public. Within the first two years the book sold more than 50,000 copies, with a second edition published in 2008, an extraordinary achievement. As such, this book deserves to be the most recent exhibit in our history of wild bird feeding presented in the previous chapter. However, given its apparent influence on the pattern of bird feeding in Germany and beyond, it is appropriate to feature this remarkable book—and its main author—in some detail (a little later).

  Why the Change?

  The growth and diversification of the wild bird–feeding industry in recent years has been staggering, and it continues to expand. This means, among other things, that more people are feeding and that these people are also feeding more frequently: more food, more often, and in some places, throughout the year. Of course, we do need to acknowledge that in many countries—primarily in warmer climates—bird feeding has always been a year-round practice. Think of the seemingly universal provisioning of hummingbirds right through the Americas, or the typical practice in Southern Hemisphere countries where feeding is entirely continuous. In these places, helping birds through winter has not been a major motivation, although assistance through other forms of “difficulty” such as severe droughts or in the aftermath of serious storms certainly occurs. This is not what I am exploring here.

  What the “big change” refers to is the apparently widespread and permanent move to continuous feeding in those countries where winter-only feeding was long the norm. The potential implications of such a massive increase in food being provided for wild birds is central to our story, and we really do need to explore how this change in what was a traditional practice came about. To my knowledge, this aspect of the bird-feeding story has not been researched in any detail, so again, our discussion will inevitably be based on limited sources of data and heavily influenced by my di
scussions with several experts and key players. Let’s take a closer look, then, at the three places where this change has been particularly prominent, and for which there is at least some information: North America, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

  North America

  I am again obliged to Baicich, Barker, and Henderson, the authors of the Feeding Wild Birds booklet and the more recent Feeding Wild Birds in America, for their historical description of the development of the feeding industry in North America.3 Although similarly detailed information is simply not available for most other places, it seems likely that organized feeding practice had commenced earlier and was far more advanced as a commercial activity in the United States and Canada than anywhere else in the world. Yet while the number of seed companies and feeding products proliferated during the middle of the twentieth century (as described in Chapter 2), by far the majority of feeding up until the mid-1950s remained winter-only; “it was still viewed as a way to help save birds.”4 Perhaps significantly, there appear to have been far fewer of the rigid traditions among North American feeders more typical of winter feeding in Europe. The impression is of a more relaxed, informal hobby, with an emphasis on enjoying the presence of birds. Certainly, the bulk of the feeding activity was conducted during the cold months, but if folks wanted to keep feeding, few would have objected. This scenario is exemplified by the typically year-round feeding of hummingbirds. Everyone loves hummers, and the reward of attracting these living gems is such that plenty of people do so continuously. Indeed, it is quite possible that the presence of these charismatic birds throughout the year has influenced the move to all-year feeding in general.

  The first commercial move away from the winter-only patterns seems to have been the arrival in 1956 of the explicitly labeled “Four Season” wild bird mix. This new product heralded the start of a somewhat novel concept: summer feeding. As described by Baicich and coauthors, “A new bird feeding niche had been created.”5 This so-called niche was that of continuous feeding, a practice “both entertaining and practical,” a phrase nicely encapsulating the enjoyment of the people involved and the assumed benefit to the birds. At the same time, there can be no doubt at all that this niche represented a gigantic commercial opportunity for the companies ready to respond.

  Put simply, the move to all-year feeding in North America seemed aligned with the public’s willingness to try new products, rather than needing to be convinced by careful arguments in support of such a change. For this particular region and society, the change now seems almost inevitable. It also seems to have been generally free of controversy and even scientific discussion.

  But please don’t assume that the seasonal and geographical pattern of bird feeding is uniform across the whole of North America. Although recent surveys comparing regional differences in feeding practice confirmed that large proportions of the population fed birds, the highest participation rates were associated with the northern coastal states, east and west, of the United States, with the lowest in the central zone.6 There appears to be very little published on when people feed, but my impression, derived from numerous North American contacts, is that most of the people who feed birds do so throughout the winter but that participation is slightly lower at other times, down to perhaps 70% of feeders.7 This is still a strong majority feeding all the time.

  United Kingdom

  As in many other European countries, wild bird feeding in the UK has a long history, although the timing of the modern form of a feeding industry appears to have paralleled the development occurring in North America. Various traditions and informal rules associated with when to start and stop feeding seemed to have applied, with innumerable variants (for example, in places in Ireland, winter feeding started with the first two suc-cessive frosts, or the sighting of “frolicking” hedgehogs), and it appeared that, until fairly recently, the overwhelming majority of feeders in Britain did so only in winter.8

  The change to year-round feeding in the UK appears to have been under way informally for some time but with a definite acceleration during the late 1980s and thereafter. Assuming that the typical practice was mainly winter feeding until at least the 1950s, the first British survey (the often-cited Cardiff research)9, which was conducted in the early 1980s, reported that about 40% of these households were already feeding in summer, surely an unexpectedly high proportion for those times. By the early 2000s, however, a large independent survey of five major English cities reported that 64% of respondents fed birds “at least weekly”10 (which implies regularly and continuously), while a 2013 study focused on the city of Reading found a virtually identical rate (65%) were feeding birds year-round.11 Clearly, the traditional “norm” of feeding only in winter has become a practice of a minority.

  And this is where things get really interesting, for me at least. While it appears that small but increasing numbers of British feeders were starting to feed throughout the year during the 1980s, during that period the two most respected ornithological institutions in the UK—the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)—were both clearly and implacably opposed to feeding outside winter. For example, in official advice provided to its huge membership at the time, the RSPB indicated that there was “no need to feed birds between April and September” because natural food should be abundant during those months.12 Furthermore, it was particularly important that artificial foods not be provided at these times as birds “may be tempted by easy food that can choke their young.” This was also the unqualified position adopted by the BTO, which recommended that feeding be limited to the period of August to mid-May, stopping then to avoid the period when tits had nestlings.13 From both these leading groups, the message was clear and straightforward: Don’t feed outside winter.

  Within a decade, however, the “official” message had changed completely. By the end of the 1990s, although both the BTO and RSPB continued to promote winter feeding as always, the formerly solid stance against feeding at other times had disappeared entirely. Instead, there were distinctly less negative, seemingly more considered statements, unequivocal in their support for year-round feeding. For example, the BTO:

  The modern approach to garden bird feeding is to use a range of foods that support the specific nutritional requirements of a wide range of species over the course of the year. There is scientific evidence highlighting the positive effects that the provision of supplementary food can have on birds.14

  And the RSPB:

  Although winter feeding benefits birds most, food shortages can occur at any time of the year. By feeding the birds year round, you give them a better chance to survive the period of food shortage whenever they may occur.15

  These statements may seem so sensible, maybe even so obvious to us today, that you may wonder why I bother highlighting them at all. My point is to draw attention to the magnitude of the change in stance evident here. This has not been a subtle shift in attitude; it’s a complete 180-degree rever-sal. One might wonder how this profound switch came about. After all, both the BTO and the RSPB are highly respected organizations, with huge memberships, powerful political clout, and proven records of successful conservation leadership. People (even politicians) listen to them and take note: a change in policy or direction would certainly be influential. This is because, crucially, both are strongly science-based groups, conducting world-class research and providing vital advice to governments and agencies throughout the United Kingdom and beyond. If these people made such a big change on such an important issue, surely it was going to be based on intensive research and solid evidence.

  For someone with my interests, it was therefore imperative that I find out as much as possible about this crucial period—the 1980s and 1990s— of major change in the practice of wild bird feeding in one of the key countries in this story. Although I had assembled all the materials I could find, there was little in the way of background from this era. Both the BTO and RSPB have been engaged in ornithological and conservat
ion research for decades and are committed to ensuring that their publications are easily accessible. Hours of searching their websites yielded lots of reports and documents on a diverse selection of topics, but remarkably few on feeding. One obvious problem may simply have been the lapse in time; these events took place decades ago. Most of the people involved had probably retired; maybe the key papers and reports I sought simply predated digi-tization (and therefore were not available online). Possibly relying on the Internet was actually not the best method in my quest for clarity. I actually needed to talk to people, preferably face to face. Although there was any number of relevant issues to discuss with people within these organizations, for me the most intriguing question was: What led them to change the stance on feeding practice? What better excuse to visit these two iconic British institutions in person. It took some organizing, but in November 2014, that is just what I did.

  The Lodge For some naive reason, I had expected the headquarters of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, founded in 1889, and Britain’s largest conservation charity, to be based in either an august Georgian building in central London or, in keeping with their recent contemporary re-branding (new motto: “Giving nature a home”), a glass tower somewhere like ultratrendy Canary Wharf. But the RSPB HQ needs to accommodate hundreds of staff, and that requires plenty of space. So for over 50 years, its primary center (there are also numerous regional offices) has been in the countryside of Bedfordshire, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of London. The Lodge, an old, grand, and rambling red-brick complex, is situated deep within the Lodge Reserve, one of more than 200 nature reserves managed by the society. The reserve is visited by huge numbers of birders, even on dull, rainy days such as when I visited in November.