084 Feeding Birds Ethically and Effectively - The Mountain Nature and Culture Podcast

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In this episode, look at bird feeding, and how we can do it ethically and effectively while minimizing negative impacts on your feathery friends.

If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, are you getting out to the mountains to explore? Are you looking for a guide to show you the best places the mountains have to offer? Let’s strap on a pair of snowshoes and follow the footsteps of martens, weasels, lynx, and snowshoe hares.

Why not throw on a pair of ice cleats and explore the frozen cascades of Johnston Canyon? Want a photography tour or workshop? Ward Cameron Enterprises has been showcasing our mountain landscapes for 35 years. If you want a guide to help you explore the mountains, visit www.WardCameron.ca. Let’s explore together…and with that said, let’s get to it.

Feeding Birds Ethically and Effectively

Are you a bird feeder? If so, you’re not alone. According to the 2012 Canadian Nature Survey, Canadians spend $537 million on bird-watching every year. Those expenses are split between money spent “watching, monitoring, photographing, filming, and/or feeding wild birds”. The average amount spent per participant was $201/year. Nationally, Canadians spend more than $40 billion on nature-related expenses every year.

According to the Canadian Nature Survey, Canadians spent $537 million on bird-watchingClick To Tweet

The Canadian Nature Survey takes place every 15-years and is a cooperative study operated by the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy, the federal, provincial, and territorial working group on biodiversity.

Nationally, the report revealed that 4.7 million, or 18% of Canadians, spend some time watching and/or feeding birds. Of all the nature-based activities, birding is the activity that shows the highest number of participant days near home, as well as the highest number of days engaged in nature-based activities away from home. On average, Canadians spend 133-days annually watching birds.

To put this into perspective, if 4.7 million Canadians spend an average of 133 days birding, that gives us a total of 631,750,000 person-days of birding across Canada. That’s the equivalent of every single Canadian spending at least 20 days a year watching some of the 684 bird species that can be spotted in this great nation.

The study breaks down the expenditures further. Birders spend:

$151 million on transportation
$70 million on accommodation
$125 million on bird food and
$191 million on equipment, fees, and supplies.

Looking at these numbers, $125 million is a whole lot of birdseed. OK, I did a little math on this number. On Amazon.ca, a 7 kg bag of black-oil sunflower seeds can be purchased for $16.49. I’ve placed a link on the show notes for this page at MountainNaturePodcast.com/ep084. After a little mathematical magic, $151 million buys more than 53 million kg of sunflower seeds. I find that number hard to comprehend, but it does show that Canadians love their backyard birds.

The above Amazon products are some good options for black-oil sunflower seeds and sunflower hearts to kickstart your bird feeding program (I receive a small commission if you order based on these affiliate links)

A large part of the $191 million spent on equipment includes money spent on bird feeders and associated equipment, along with binoculars, field guides, and even telescopes.

In Alberta, 14% of the population are birders. This number increases to 19% in British Columbia and Manitoba, and 22% of Saskatchewan Riders fans are birdwatchers.

One of the things that makes bird watching popular is that of all the nature-based activities that Canadians pursue, it’s one of the least expensive. Canucks average a measly $10/day while engaging in their favourite pastime. Compare that to what a day at Sunshine ski hill costs.

Birding is big business. You can’t walk into a Walmart or Home Hardware without running into big bags of birdseed, bird feeders, and even birdhouses and baths.

There’s a good reason for this… people love birds! As an added bonus, birds flock to feeders, but beginners often end up asking two questions:

Should I be feeding birds at all? I don’t want to hamper the population and there are so many differing views as to the benefits and dangers of feeding birds.
If I am going to set up bird feeders, what type of feeders should I use and what type of seed should I offer.

First, let’s take a quick look at the rules surrounding bird feeding in mountain towns like Canmore, Banff, and Jasper. Of the three communities, Canmore has the most clearly stated rules. In terms of bird feeders, Town bylaws state:

3.4 …a person or owner may place or permit the placement of an outdoor bird feeder containing bird feed, seeds, suet, nectar or any other attractant provided that:

1. 1. the bird feeder is suspended on a cable or other device in such a manner that it is inaccessible to wildlife other than birds and
  2. the area below any bird feeder is kept free of accumulations of any wildlife attractants.

3.5 Notwithstanding Section 3.4, no person or owner shall place or permit the placement of outdoor bird feeders containing bird feed, seeds, suet, nectar or any other attractant between April 1st and November 30th of each year.

3.6 Notwithstanding Sections 3.4 and 3.5, no property owner and no person shall place, or cause to be placed, on or near the property of that person, any matter which has the effect of attracting pigeons.

On the town of Canmore page detailing rules on Removing Wildlife Attractants it states:

“Do not use bird feeders of any kind during bear season (April 1 to November 30). Outside of those months, we recommend suspending the bird feeder on a cable so that it can’t be reached by any other wildlife and remember to clean the ground underneath.”

Ok, so what does this actually mean?

So for those of us in Canmore, most bird feeders are legal, but only between December 1 and March 31. I called Canmore Bylaw Services for clarification and they said bird feeders do need to be removed in the summer. In addition, it’s illegal at any time of the year to feed or attract pigeons.

There’s a very good reason you’re required to take your feeders down in a community like Canmore. Bird feeders are no different than unharvested fruit trees. If you leave food out, bears may become attracted to them and then you’re putting the safety of the bears at risk.Click To Tweet

Banff and Jasper have historically stayed quieter when it comes to the rules regarding bird feeders. Technically, feeding wildlife is illegal anywhere in a national park, and so by extension, bird feeding is not allowed. In reality, they’ve historically taken a blind eye towards feeding in the parks.

Park officials have mulled a bird feeder ban but haven’t yet had the town enshrine a specific ban into their bylaws.

In a December 2018 Rocky Mountain Outlook article, reporter Cathy Ellis stated:

“Town of Banff officials say Parks Canada has also indicated it’s a cumbersome process to charge someone caught with a birdfeeder in town, which includes a mandatory court appearance under the Canada National Parks Act.”

According to the story, bylaw services supervisor Tony Clark stated:

“The feeding of wildlife obviously is covered under Parks regulations, but when they actually have to do the enforcement when it comes to charging, they have a very onerous process”

I spoke with Banff Bylaw Services and they said they are in the process right now of drafting rules that will ban bird feeders in Banff Townsite. It was unclear whether that would be a blanket ban because of its location within a national park, or a seasonal ban as in Canmore.

The officer stated that it should be in place by next summer, but if not, it will definitely be in place by the summer of 2021.

So if you can’t feed birds in the summer, what’s a bird lover to do? Your best option is to plan your backyard landscaping and gardening with birds in mind. Plant shrubs and trees to offer shelter, protection, and nesting opportunities for them.

If you do put out a feeder in the winter, be sure to keep it stocked. If you can, place your feeders close to trees and other shelters.

Ok, now that we’ve got the rules out of the way, we come to the next question – should we feed birds? Or to put this into another perspective, is feeding birds helpful or harmful to the birds?

On this subject, there are lots of different studies, with most of them showing a positive benefit. In my constant hunt for stories, I found a 2014 study in the publication Frontiers in Zoology

This study looked at the impacts of bird feeding and how it impacted reproductive success, the number of eggs laid, and even the timing of nest building.

The availability of food, and when it’s available, are two of the greatest limitations placed on most animal populations. This is compounded by how much energy a bird needs to spend to get its beak on that food.

The study states:

“The energy involved to obtain food and process it is tightly related to the physiology and behaviour of animals, and the proportion of total energy and nutrients that are allocated to reproduction.”

It’s important to realize that in many populations, food isn’t the most important limitation. Other challenges include predation and other important resources other than food that keep populations in check like climate change, competition, and many other factors.

Birds attempt to time nesting so their eggs hatch when the most abundant food supply is present. Migrations are timed for the same reason. Unfortunately, with warming climates, some plants are blooming earlier and insect populations are peaking earlier. If migrations end up out of sync with their food sources, there will be severe impacts on reproductive success. Each bird species timing of migration has evolved over very long periods and it’ll take some time for populations to respond to changes in food availability.

For birds that feed on small mammals, their population and reproductive strategies mirror the natural ebb and flow of the rodent population. However, for some rodents, these population swings can be extremely dramatic.

In other cases, there are periodic insect population explosions or seed mast events. The latter refers to coniferous trees like white spruce periodically producing vast amounts of cones. The theory is that massive numbers of cones would overwhelm the ability of predators like birds, and in particular the red squirrel, to eat or cache all the seeds produced.

While these events may correlate with improved reproductive success, without careful study, it’s difficult to definitively state that successes or failures were caused by increases in available foods.

Supplemental feeding of birds offers a more controlled way to test whether providing quality food to birds over an extended period has a positive impact on their reproductive success.

This study looked at the impacts of bird feeding on the reproductive success of 48 different species. It sought to determine whether feeding prompted birds to nest earlier, and/or have an impact on factors such as clutch size, egg dimensions, hatching success, brood size, chick weight, or the number of chicks successfully fledged.

Secondly, it looked at “key factors (including life-history traits, behavioural factors, environmental factors, experimental design) that can induce variation in laying date, clutch size and breeding success in response to food supplementation.”

Researchers examined a total of 82 different studies that covered the following groups:

birds of prey – 19 studies
jays, crows, and ravens – 11 studies
perching birds and songbirds – 38 studies
seabirds – 7 studies
wetland birds – 5 studies
other birds – 2 studies

Coincidentally, most of the studies looked at more northern bird populations with 44 of the studies looking at birds north of 50 degrees latitude. This puts them within Canada’s territory.

Study shows bird feeding may positively impact bird laying date, clutch size, chick weight, and breeding successClick To Tweet

Overall, the study showed a positive correlation between feeding birds and laying date, clutch size, chick weight, and breeding success. It didn’t seem to impact egg size, brood size or hatching success.

Clutch size, or the number of eggs in a nest, was most positively impacted in corvids – the family that includes the jays, crows, and ravens. Because these birds cache their food supplies, they were best able to take advantage of the additional food offered at feeders.

Rather than consuming all of the food right away, they collected as much as possible and stored it. These larders let them continue to feed even if the feeders run dry.

The study also showed that feeding birds had the greatest impacts when natural foods were less available than at other times. In times of plenty, most birds don’t need bird feeders, but when times are tough, they are a welcome addition to the landscape.

It also showed the additional calories provided by feeding were mostly allocated towards reproduction, allowing some species to nest earlier, have larger clutches, and heavier chicks. All of these things help increase the number of chicks that successfully leave the nest.

Earlier nests also provide better opportunities for re-nesting in cases where the original nest is destroyed by predators like red squirrels. This improves the odds their second attempt at nesting will be successful. The impact on nesting date diminished the further north you travel.

In the north, short summer seasons mean there is little option to vary the timing. Nesting is timed to take advantage of the briefly favourable weather window and timed so the eggs hatch when the most food is available. In many species, nesting is triggered by natural rhythms unrelated to food, like the amount of daylight, making them less flexible to alter these hard-wired behaviours.

In terms of clutch size, feeding did show a positive impact. This likely reflects one or both of two potential scenarios.

More food allows a female bird to devote more energy to egg production or
having an excess amount of food before nesting can be seen as a predictor of how much food will be available when the eggs hatch and thus how much food will be available for rearing chicks.

There are so many things that can impact reproductive success, and feeding is just one of them. Competition between breeding pairs, food competitors, and predators also have a great impact. How long supplemental food is available also has an impact. Birds that are fed before and during the breeding and rearing stages showed the greatest impact.

Not all impacts are positive though. Crowded feeders can increase the potential spread of disease and parasites.

This study wasn’t able to look at the varying quality of different food brands. Every food has different nutrient profiles with some being more nutritious than others. Like most studies, this one leaves the door open for more research investigating nutritional aspects like these.

In 2010, a paper was presented at the Ecological Society of America annual conference. It also used citizen science to enlist 173 Canadian and American bird feeders to undertake a careful study comparing different foods and feeders to see how 106 different bird species selected their preferred foods and which feeders they preferred.

There are so many online sources telling you which foods are preferred by birds, but it’s difficult to tell how accurate they are, particularly because most are based on personal opinions and beliefs. In other cases, they may simply be marketing pieces by companies trying to sell you feed.

Differing articles often recommend different foods – often for the same species. If you put out the wrong foods for the birds you want to attract, you can end up with lots of uneaten seed which can rot and become potentially dangerous, or it may attract other animals including rodents, Canmore bunnies, or even bears looking for an easy feed. Remember, a bird feeder full of sunflower seeds is an irresistible attraction to a bear. This is the key reason it’s critical to take down feeders during the summer season when bears are active.

This study compared 10 different seed types, to see how different birds selected both food and feeder. What makes it unique is that it wasn’t done by scientists, but by passionate backyard birders that worked with researchers on a rigorous survey designed to get accurate results in the real world. It looked at backyard bird feeding and tried to better quantify how to select the correct feeder and food based on the birds you want to attract.

The study, called Project Wildbird, looked at 5 different questions:

1. “Are the number of bird visits within species equivalent at different seed types?
2. Are the number of bird visits within species equivalent at different feeder types?
3. Does the number of bird visits at each seed type vary by feeder type?
4. Does the number of bird visits at each seed type vary by season?; and
5. Does the number of bird visits at each seed type vary by region of the U.S. and Canada?”

Answering these questions helps increase your success at attracting your favourite birds, and also a wider variety of species than you’ll get with a more haphazard approach.

By using citizen scientists, researchers were able to tap into an already motivated group of regular feeders enabling them to compile vast amounts of data while working closely with volunteers to ensure they followed the rigorous scientific guidelines.

They received far more volunteer applications than they could accommodate, but after 2 separate phone interviews designed to test volunteer’s ability to identify birds and follow the required procedures, only about 10% of the applicants were accepted.

Each participant was given 4 bird feeders and also equipped with squirrel and raccoon guards to keep them out of the feeders.

They were also given 10 types of birdseed: black-oiled sunflower, cracked corn, fine sunflower chips, medium sunflower chips, Nyjer, red milo, safflower, striped sunflower, white proso millet, and whole, unshelled peanuts. Sunflower chips are simply hulled black-oil sunflower seeds with the edible hearts chopped into different sizes.

These 10 seed types are the most commonly offered in most commercial seed mixtures.

There were also three kinds of feeders with each researcher getting 4 separate feeders but of only one of these types:

1. tube-style where the food was dispersed through metal ports with perches
2. hopper style where the feeder looks like a small house with the seeds being dispersed on a ledge on the bottom and
3. platform feeders where the seeds are placed on a large platform.

The available space for birds to land and perch increased as you moved from tube-style, to hopper, and finally to platform feeders.

The volunteers monitored the feeders during each of 4 seasons for an entire year (and in some cases two years), and the seeds were rotated through the feeders on an assigned rotation schedule. Black-oil sunflower and white proso millet were always available in at least 2 of the 4 feeders.

The remaining 8 seeds types were offered 2 at a time in the remaining two feeders.

The study included 173 volunteers from 38 states and 3 provinces. During the study, more than 1.2 million visits of 106 species were recorded. Of those visits, American goldfinch, house finch, and house sparrow represented 55% of the visits.

Nyjer seed and sunflower chips attracted smaller finches like the goldfinch, redpoll, and pine siskin. Black-capped chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, and purple finch preferred black-oil sunflower.

Ground feeding birds like red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, and dark-eyed juncos flocked to white proso millet. Blue jays and white-breasted nuthatches preferred peanuts while downy woodpeckers enjoyed sunflower chips.

As was expected, if you want to attract larger birds like blue or Stellar’s jays, then platform feeders were the most effective. These feeders also enchanted ground feeders like the brown-headed cowbird and dark-eyed junco. It also kept the feed off the ground where it could attract other animals.

Tube and platform feeders attracted smaller birds able to take advantage of their more limited perch space. These included black-capped chickadees, chipping sparrows, common redpoll, purple finch, and song sparrows.

The bottom line is that black-oil sunflowers, medium sunflower chips, and white proso millet were the most popular foods across all regions. With these three foods, you’ll attract the largest variety of birds. Of these three, though the black-oil sunflower seeds and sunflower chips were more than 10 times more popular than the millet.

In the central Rockies, if you just put out a single food, make it black-oil sunflower seeds. Depending on which feeder or feeders you use, it will influence which feathered visitors join your buffet.Click To Tweet

In this area, if you just put out a single food, make it black-oil sunflower seeds. Depending on which feeder or feeders you use, it will influence which feathered visitors join your buffet.

Seed preferences are based on many factors. These include seed and beak sizes, beak shape, the nutritional value of the food, and the bird’s feeding habits. An all-around strategy would include placing one tubular and one hopper feeder. This will attract the widest diversity of birds. Chickadees and nuthatches can hang at the tubular feeder while blue and perhaps Stellar’s jays will say hello to your hopper.

What makes this study unique is its huge number of individual observations and its coordinated method of comparing feeder types against foods for more than 100 different bird species.

Now that you have an idea of what the most popular foods are, you may be tempted to just grab a seed mix to try to cover all of your bases. Keep in mind that many of these so-called “mixes” are full of cheap seeds that most of your birds won’t ever eat. Focus on quality foods and quality feeders. If you travel to Calgary on a regular basis, check out the Wild Bird Store. If you want to shop locally, and I always promote that when possible, you should have no problem buying black-oil sunflower seeds at Home Hardware in Canmore and Banff, but again avoid the mixes.

I would also avoid seed bells. They’re convenient, but eventually, they get eaten to the point where they fall off of their hook and become ground food. If you do buy a bell, buy their sunflower seed only bell.

The challenge with shopping at a hardware store is simply that they don’t know birds. I’ve placed a few links to feeders and feed available on Amazon as well that may help to get you started. You can check those out on the show notes for this episode at www.MountainNaturePodcast.com/ep084.

A related story has to do with people feeding the mallards on Policeman’s Creek. Please don’t feed bread, crackers, or popcorn to our local ducks. Not only doesn’t it help the mallards; but in fact, it’s extremely detrimental to their survival. After all, we all know that bread rarely adds nutritional benefits to our diet – especially white bread, crackers and popcorn.

The more ducks fill up on bread, the less they feed and forage for natural foods.

Too many carbs as in bread fed urban ducks can suffer from a disorder called angel, or airplane wing.

According to a National Geographic blog post:

“Angel wing is a condition where the last joint on the wing is distorted and causes the end feathers to stick out laterally—sideways—instead of lying flat against the body. This prevents the bird from flying.”

According to the article, it’s curable in young birds but not in adults.

The more people feeding ducks often means the more ducks in that area. Every duck has to get rid of their bready meal and as more and more ducks (each attracted by free food), contribute carbon, phosphorous, and nitrogen in the water and surrounding area, the more the area becomes susceptible to harmful algae growths, fish kills, and other challenges.

As ducks get more accustomed to being hand-fed by people, they tend to lose their fear. This can make them easy prey to predators like coyotes, foxes, roaming cats, etc. They may even be more likely to wander out of the pond and onto roadways.

So there you have it…don’t feed bread, crackers, popcorn or similar foods to ducks in Canmore! Remember the mantra – “No crackers for quackers!” If you’d like to read more on this subject, here is a great article, and full credit goes to them for this catchy quote.

Don't feed bread or crackers to ducks! Remember the mantra - No crackers for quackers!Click To Tweet

If you absolutely must feed your local mallards, then plan and provide the most nutritional foods. What do they normally eat – greens and bugs.

This means natural greens like chopped up kale (yuck), lettuce, and even dandelions are awesome. If you happen to have any mealworms or freeze-dried crickets, the ducks will also take those off of your hand. Insects form a big part of their summer food even though most of us don’t realize it.

Remember though, ducks don’t chew, so make sure all of your offerings are in nice bite-sized bits.

Now, let’s wrap up with a few other tips. When lots of birds gather at a feeder, there is also the opportunity for the spread of parasites and even diseases. It’s critical that you keep your feeders clean. At least once a month, take down your feeder and give it a good cleaning with hot water and a good brush. Make sure any residue is well cleaned and the feeder is dry before hanging it again.

With the frigid temperatures, the mountains recently endured, our avian friends had it much harder. They expend a great deal of energy trying to stay warm, so when the weather is at its worst, you need to be at your best and ensure the feeders stay full.

Clean, full feeders during the limited season we are allowed to feed birds can make sure your feathered friends benefit from your generosity.

If you’re listening to this episode and thinking to yourself, “well I don’t live in Canmore, Banff, or Jasper, so I can put up feeders all year long”, I would ask that you consider a few points.

When it comes to feeders, just because you may be allowed to have summer feeders, you might ask yourself whether you should. As an educator, I spend my summers with visitors from across North America. I often hear them lament on how black bears are so problematic where they live.

My usual response is to ask them a few questions:

Do you have fruit trees that you don’t harvest?
Do you feed your pets or other animals outside?
Do you store food or garbage outside? and
Do you keep up bird feeders in the summer?

All of these things will attract bears to your yard, especially when other natural foods may be scarce. All too often, when people complain about bears being such a hassle, usually it turns out that they are the cause of their own complaint.

Quite simply…”If you feed them, they will come”. If we make sure to keep our yards free of bear attractants during the season they are out and about, we can enjoy our avian friends while the bears slumber.

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