by Darryl Jones
Purpose and Personalities
As I try to formulate some sort of conclusion to this exploration of the changes that have occurred when people feed wild birds, I am struck by two rather obvious themes. First, it depends on what people perceive as the primary “purpose” of their feeding. For perhaps the majority of places where bird feeding occurs around the world this purpose appears to be one of simply attracting birds for the pleasure of seeing them close up. It is more about enjoyment and appreciation rather than conservation or assistance. In other words, feeding may be regarded as a pastime, a leisure-time activity, a hobby. If so, feeding can occur anytime, regularly or occasionally, irrespective of time of the year. For these feeders, this earnest discussion about winter feeding versus year-round is probably redundant—and probably irrelevant. This seems to be the case for many feeders, but especially in places where climatic or environmental conditions are mild; while the birds readily take the food being offered, they don’t really need to. In these circumstances, there is typically little discussion about when feeding should happen.
On the other hand, people may be feeding birds with the intended purpose of helping. This is particularly evident in places with severe climatic conditions, where birds are perceived to be suffering, especially during harsh and prolonged winters. As we have seen, feeding may also be associated with assisting birds by replacing diminished food supplies and increasing their likelihood of survival. In these circumstances, the reasons for feeding would appear to be much more significant than a mere pastime. Feeding as helping is, therefore, much more likely to lead to discussion about possible benefits and risks—because this is not just about human enjoyment, it’s all about the birds themselves.
Now, this dichotomy is clearly far too simplistic (and I will be outlining just how complex our motivations for feeding can be in a later chapter). It may, however, assist us in attempting to discern the different attitudes evident in North America compared to those in Europe, at least in recent times. While feeding as attracting and helping obviously occurs in both regions, the differing conservation status of birds using feeders appears to have conferred a contrasting perspective on the practice. We could say that North Americans feed birds to see them, while Europeans feed birds to save them. This may offer some explanation as to the relative nonissue of when to feed in the United States and Canada and the strength of the debates around why and why not seen in the UK and the rest of Europe.
I was also struck by the powerful influence of a relatively small number of people on the change in the seasonal timing of feeding that has occurred in Europe. From all the material and personal impressions I have been able to glean, it seemed that the big change was far more influenced by these personalities than by the scientific evidence. There had been references to certain, sometimes unspecified, “studies,” but remarkably little actual data. Part of this will relate to the lack of research undertaken prior to the crucial 1980s–1990s period. Some important research had been conducted (including the “forgotten” Thompson studies), and it provided significant insights into crucial factors, such as whether parent birds used feeders to gather food for nestlings and how feeding could influence survival. But providing convincing scientific evidence seemed less of a factor in bringing about this profound change in the practice of feeding than the exhortations and forceful statements of a few well-known spokesmen.
That the personal opinion of effective and respected authorities has been more influential than straightforward logic and argument is not really that surprising. How the message is sold has been at least as important as the message itself. For this story, however, it is time to have a closer and more critical look at the evidence associated with wild bird feeding. A lot of claims and definitive statements have been made along this journey so far. Just what do we know with certainty about the effect of all those feeders?
4
THE FEEDER EFFECT
What All That Food Can Do
November may not be the ideal time to visit the northern part of New York State, but the spectacular late-fall colors do compensate a little for the biting cold. Massive snowfalls across the Great Lakes region had threatened to stall my travel plans, so I was relieved to see the rolling landscapes around the Finger Lakes ablaze in vivid oranges, yellows, and reds as the small plane turned to descend. There were many reasons I was looking forward to getting back to the small rural city of Ithaca: seeing several long-term friends, wandering through the spacious campus of Cornell University, trying varieties of sweet red apples I had never heard of, enjoying the hoppy flavors of the locally brewed beer. My family and I had spent a delightful and productive sabbatical based at the university almost twenty years ago. Significantly, that period involved my first experiences as a bird feeder, American style.
In Ithaca, we lived in a large house with a sprawling garden, complete with five separate feeders. The owners, themselves academics away on sabbatical leave, left written instructions on every aspect of home and garden maintenance, but those associated with the feeders were particular detailed. The garage contained various drums of black sunflowers and several seed mixes, along with all manner of funnels, ladles, and containers for carrying the food to the feeders. As I surveyed the equipment and read the itemized instructions, I began to appreciate that this was something of a big deal. As someone with no experience of feeding at all at the time, I admit that it took me a while to “get it.” As I began to engage in the process of filling the feeders and watching the results, my reactions developed roughly in the following order: indifference (Why would anyone be this interested in feeding birds?); responsibility (I had probably better follow these instructions carefully); tentative fascination (Actually, this is quite interesting); and finally, sincere commitment (I’ll just top up those three back feeders again. It’s getting pretty tough out there!). At the time, however, I probably thought of it as simply a temporary “vacation experience,” soon to be little more than a fond memory. I now realize that it was an experience with lifelong effects.
Even if we start feeding for the simplest reasons (“I just like seeing them close by”), the possibility that providing food may be influencing the birds in various ways is soon brought to our attention. Whether this is from fellow feeders, neighbors, the media, or official advice from bird and conservation groups, there are plenty of claims about the ways that feeding may be affecting the birds. These are often positive such as improving their welfare during times of scarcity, enhancing survival, and supporting populations of declining species. But there are also those negative claims: the birds may become dependent on the food we provide; concentrating birds at feeders can spread disease; and feeding is leading some species to stop migrating. These, and lots of other claims, are potentially significant and are certainly worthy of our attention. Such issues are clearly important for a book such as this. While some have already been mentioned, understanding how much we really know about the “feeder effect” is central to this journey.
Which brings us to the unsettling issue of evidence. This is unavoidable because we are attempting to take a critical and scientific approach to assessing some of the claims and statements associated with feeding. A scientific approach means finding and evaluating the relevant research and synthesizing it into a form that is both faithful to the science yet accessible to the reader. There are many studies on a wide variety of species that look at how the addition of food influences their ecology and behavior. These experimental studies, known as supplementary feeding research, is extensive, and the findings are discussed in detail in Chapter 5. Many of these experiments provide important findings of relevance to us. However, almost all have involved strictly controlled research focusing on single species conducted in natural environments, well away from people. This is important work but is very different to the delightful chaos of a typical suburban garden where feeding occurs, with all the different feeders, foods, species, practices, and variability. No, attempting to understand the broader influence of
wild bird feeding as it occurs across large areas is going to require a very different approach.
The reality is that while wild bird feeding may be a massive enterprise with a global reach, the focus and interest of most individual feeders is on their own private garden. All those issues and worries may be of potential interest, but unless they affect us directly, they may seem a bit too vague or remote. On the other hand, most feeders are pleased to share their experiences or queries (such as that strange behavior I saw yesterday, or, Did you know that [species x] ate [food y]? Or, Is it unusual to see [species z] here at this time of the year?). I am delighted to share my personal observations, especially if I know it helps understand something of the big picture. But I guess I would need some convincing as to whether it was worth my while.
Convincing an eager army of willing feeders to turn their personal observations into precious data has been the astonishing achievement of a program called Project FeederWatch.1 Since its modest beginnings in the 1970s, the information gathered from ordinary people has transformed what is known about many of the birds of North America. Can the project also tell us about the effect of feeders across this vast landscape? The people who run Project FeederWatch are based in Ithaca, and I am here to learn more.
A Visit to the Lab
Just outside Ithaca, surrounded by woods and lakes, is the internationally renowned Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, typically referred to with warm informality as the “Lab of O.” Through its close links with Cornell University, the Lab’s academic credentials are undeniable, but arguably its most significant achievement has been in attracting huge numbers of regular people, not for degrees, Ivy League reputations, or even to mingle with some of the greatest minds on the planet, but simply through a shared appreciation of birds. The variety of approaches taken by the Lab to achieve this has been astonishing and often technological—bird ID apps, easy-to-use sound-recording software, instantaneous logging of bird locations, for example. But it has been the sincere and effective engagement with vast number of people that really stands out.
The Lab of Ornithology did not invent the concept of “citizen science,” but they are leaders in putting it into purposeful, effective action.2 Utiliz-ing the time, enthusiasm, and availability of ordinary people in order to observe, record, and participate in any number of science projects has been an almost revolutionary movement in recent times. Of course, the challenges of being able to transform the initial willingness of citizens into a meaningful and ongoing partnership with researchers are formidable. Inadequate training can all too easily result in useless data, while too much control—or too little—can discourage and disappoint the participants.3 It’s a fine line, as the many failed citizen science projects around the world can attest. The Lab must be doing something right: each year enormous numbers of people count, record, watch, and then send in a mountain of priceless data. I’m here to find out why.
The walk from the parking lot to the front door of the imposing Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity, home to the Lab, is not that far, but at –17 °F and in a bitter wind, even I forgo the chance to scan the nearby Sapsucker Woods Pond for sheltering ducks. Once inside, however, I realize that the entire western side of the two-story building consists of glass walls, looking directly out over the pond. Well, what did I expect? This workplace is literally full of birders. After I give my name to the attendant at the reception desk, she hands me a pair of excellent binoculars and, waving in the general direction of those massive windows, says, “Check out the waterbirds while you wait.” I do as instructed: Hooded Mergansers, Wood Ducks, and Mallards are out on the choppy waters and even a solitary, silent Great Blue Heron stands statue-like nearby.
A sudden flutter of much smaller birds draws my attention to the bare shrubs just outside the window. They are swarming to one of the numerous of feeders of various designs positioned within view: hanging tubes of different widths, covered platforms, and suet baskets. Restless groups of little birds land on the feeders, jostle for a spot, then move on to the next. I think I see Black-capped Chickadees, American Tree Sparrows, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and an American Goldfinch, but they are flitting about so relentlessly it’s hard to be sure. They certainly look hungry, and it’s obvious that competition is fierce out there in the freezing wind. I can’t help but wonder: What would they do without the feeders?
My birding is interrupted by the arrival of two people I had wanted to meet for a long time: David Bonter, who had coordinated Project FeederWatch for over ten years, and Emma Greig, who took over from David a few years ago. Together they should be able to provide long-term perspectives as well as current realities on one of the most successful citizen science projects in the world. Before we turn to leave, David scans the sky, and Anna the closest feeder. “Lots of snow tomorrow,” and “That feeder needs refilling,” they observe respectively.
Project FeederWatch actually started in Canada as the Ontario Bird Feeder Survey.4 The Long Point Bird Observatory (located on an extended finger of land jutting far out into Lake Erie) recruited what seemed like a lot—333 to be exact—of “kitchen-window researchers” for the first trial during the winter of 1976–1977. The aims were modest: to get people to record which species were coming to their private feeders, how many, and which food they liked best. There was plenty of skepticism, especially from “real” scientists, who queried the skills of these untrained observers and therefore the reliability of the information they gathered. These are valid criticisms and were taken seriously by the organizers of the program, leading to continuous refinement of the instructions and feedback to participants. But the numbers of people enthusiastically involved continued to grow and spread, especially in the US Northeast. At around the ten-year mark, the Canadian-based survey joined with the Cornell Lab to provide truly continent-wide coverage. Renamed Project FeederWatch and coordinated by Erica (“Riccie”) Dunn and from then on headquartered at the Lab, the new combined program was launched in the winter of 1987– 1988 with over 4000 participants.5 Currently—almost forty years since it began—the project has over 15,000 members, all contributing high-quality information, on a scale utterly impossible by any other means.6
“Yes, those numbers are impressive, of course,” explains David Bonter, “but the really telling statistic is ‘seventy,’ as in 70%. That’s the retention rate of people in Project FeederWatch, meaning that seven out of every ten participants continue to stay involved the following year. The average for most citizen science projects is less than about 10%. Everyone is always enthusiastic when they start something, but it is really hard to keep them interested year after year. It seems to be different with FeederWatch; folks just love their birds.”
I suspect that there is a bit more to it than that. I ask Emma Greig, the current coordinator, why she thinks people are so loyal. “I think that they join up because they are already interested in birds and they stay involved because they feel that they are part of something big and important, that even though they may not be scientists themselves, they are contributing to a major science project. But maintaining that perception requires constant feedback; it’s a lot of hard work!” This involves, among many other things, keeping a superbly interactive website up-to-date and looking continually fresh. New stories are needed constantly, the incoming data needs to checked and rechecked, and decisions made about the veracity of reports. (“A mockingbird in Washington State?” Emma says. “Really?”) The Lab makes its mountains of data available to scientists and the public, for research and curiosity, so the data have to be thoroughly reliable. These kinds of quality control and checks are a normal part of any scientific research, but it’s often the “citizen” part of citizen science that takes the time. For instance, a big part of Emma’s day-to-day work is hands-on, old-fashioned phone conversations with FeederWatch members about mundane problems and personal requests. Plenty of folks still like to chat about the “lovely little bird that just showed up” or to renew their membership o
ver the phone. If Emma occasionally feels overwhelmed, she doesn’t let it show. Which is just as well because, I am shocked to learn, this continent-wide, mass-participation, internationally renowned program is managed almost entirely by Emma and a couple of part-time assistants.
As a result of successfully recruiting, training, and retaining an enthusiastic multitude of members for several decades, Project FeederWatch has received a vast amount of data. With diligent observers located throughout—though not evenly—the entire North American continent sending in monthly records of over a hundred species that visit feeders (from November to April), extremely detailed information is now available over a massive landscape. This provides a clear and reliable picture of the dynamic nature of changes in movements of feeder birds in both space and time. Actually, given the scale of the geography and time span, the “picture” is more like a video that represents changes in time as well as space.
David Bonter invites me to sit beside him at his desk so I can view his large computer screen. He demonstrates the ease with which anyone can interrogate the Project FeederWatch database to visualize changes in the distribution of any particular species over the whole of North America.7 “Let’s pick a winter favorite, the Northern Cardinal,” suggests David, not knowing that a glorious photograph of this bird—vividly scarlet against a snowy background—is an incongruous feature of my office wall back in Brisbane. In the “Map Room” section of the Project FeederWatch website, David selects the annual February totals for cardinals, and within sec-onds a map of North America pulsates as millions of accumulated reports are displayed as colored dots. The map background is blotchy with grey circles indicating the location of project participants, while places where cardinals had been recorded glow yellow. As expected, the sweep of yellow conforms to the general distribution map for the species, as shown in any bird guide: cardinals are found at feeders throughout the eastern half of the United States (apart from a strangely separate population in Arizona) and just into the southeastern provinces of Canada. The maps of bird distribution in the guidebooks suggest that the area occupied by a species is somehow fixed. Switching to a different display showing changes year by year, however, shows clearly that this idea is far too simplistic.