[wisb] Re: Bird Feeding News
- From: "Sommer, Joan" <joan.sommer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:42:44 -0500
Maureen,
I do a lot of bird feeding and found this very interesting. Thanks for sending.
I have noted the most popular seeds at my feeders are exactly what the article
states. However I don't feed any millet except during spring and fall migration
since I don't want to encourage house sparrows.
One difference I do note is that safflower is pretty popular in my yard.
Cardinals, chickadees, house finches, nuthatches (both red and white), and then
the mourning doves clean up what falls on the ground. With the added advantage
that the house sparrows don't seem to like it. Of course, maybe it is a lower
energy food so not as desirable.
I don't feed ANY mixes. Less waste that way. Nobody has to kick a bunch of
seeds out onto the ground to get at what they really want.
I also regularly feed shelled peanuts in two different peanut feeders and they
are always a big hit. Especially with the woodpeckers. Unfortunately, even the
house sparrows have learned to cling to the peanut feeder. As have the
starlings and grackles!
I have also noted the "weigh and discard" strategy of many birds. I
particularly enjoy watching the jays and crows try to decide which peanut in
the shell they should start with.
Joan Sommer
Fredonia
N. Ozaukee County
-----Original Message-----
From: wisbirdn-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:wisbirdn-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Maureen Gross
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 7:58 AM
To: wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [wisb] Bird Feeding News
http://www.nwf.org/NationalWildlife/article.cfm?issueID=131&articleId=1769&20090928_WLO_September_Edition
<http://www.nwf.org/NationalWildlife/article.cfm?issueID=131&articleId=1769&20090928_WLO_September_Edition>
*NATIONAL WILDLIFE MAGAZINE*
Oct/Nov 2009, vol. 47 no. 6
Backyard Habitat
By David Lukas
For the Birds: Which Seeds Are Best?
*/Though feeding wild birds is one of the nation's most popular hobbies,
few studies have been conducted on avian nutritional needs; here are
some of the most recent findings/*
*AS THE WEATHER TURNS* cooler, it's time for backyard birders to start
cleaning out feeders and stocking up on supplies for winter feeding.
Trying to decide which bird seed to buy? Surprisingly, the answer is not
clear-cut. Despite our enthusiasm for backyard feeding---more than 50
million people feed wild birds in the United States alone---very little
science has gone into understanding the nutritional needs of wild birds
or even which seeds they like to eat.
According to David Horn, associate professor of ecology at Millikin
University and a leading expert on the subject, "wild bird feeding is
one of our most understudied wildlife management issues." To promote
smarter decisions about bird seeds and how to feed wild birds, he
recently established the National Bird-Feeding Society
(www.birdfeeding.org <http://www.birdfeeding.org>). Many of the group's
recommendations will be based on Project Wildbird, a 2005--2008 study
led by Horn in which several thousand volunteers contributed
observations from their backyard feeders. Among the study's results are
that black oil sunflower, white proso millet, nyjer (thistle) seed and
sunflower chips are the most highly sought after seeds for reasons that
are only now being researched (see www.projectwildbird.org
<http://www.projectwildbird.org>).
To stay healthy, birds must consume a mix of fats, proteins,
carbohydrates and various vitamins and minerals to fuel a metabolism
that can require up to a whopping 10,000 calories a day (equivalent to a
human consuming 155,000 calories). A bird's inner furnace burns
especially hot during flight and the breeding season and on the coldest
days, which means the animals must make highly efficient choices about
what they eat.
A backyard feeder is an especially efficient place to forage because it
mimics what scientists call a "resource patch," a cluster of food much
like a fruit-laden apple tree. But although a feeder offers an abundance
of food, evolutionary pressures encourage birds to continuously sample a
wide variety of foods because any bird that becomes dependent on a
single patch or type of food will perish if it runs out.
This means you don't have to worry that birds will become overly
dependent on your feeder. Indeed, in a classic study of black-capped
chickadees, ecologist Margaret Clark Brittingham of the University of
Wisconsin found that even when they have access to unlimited feeder
food, these voracious seedeaters obtain 79 percent of their daily energy
needs from a variety of wild sources. Birds are remarkably proficient at
assessing potential food items for nutritional content and quality. If
you watch your feeder closely, you may observe the animals lightly
rattling individual seeds in their bills to weigh and taste them before
deciding whether to drop them to the ground or eat them. Low-quality
foods are discarded and a consistently low-quality food patch may be
avoided for a while---a behavior called "neophibia" that explains why
birds learn to avoid your feeder if you put out old, moldy or inedible
seeds.
At the University of California--Davis, animal nutrition expert Kirk
Klasing is studying how birds taste and assess the nutritional profiles
of foods. He recently discovered that the animals "mostly taste umami,"
referring to the Japanese term for one of the five basic tastes, in this
case a taste for protein. This benefits birds, says Klasing, because
seeds high in protein are nearly always high in fat, and fat provides
the energy boost that gets a bird through cold winter nights or the
energetically demanding needs of flight. It's possible that birds may
taste the fat content of seeds as well.
Project Wildbird also found that favored seeds tend to be high in
protein and fat. In addition, studies have revealed that birds choose
seeds that are easily handled and digested (like millet), emphasizing
that for birds, eating is not only about nutrition but about consuming a
lot of food very quickly while avoiding predators. Research has shown
that given a choice between high-quality, cumbersome seeds or
low-quality, easily handled seeds, birds consistently choose the latter.
Whichever seeds you buy, a growing body of evidence shows that backyard
feeding helps wild birds---the animals' growth rates, survival rates,
breeding success and clutch sizes all improve markedly when they have
access to feeders. Putting out high-quality seeds, bought as fresh as
possible and stored in a dry clean place, seems to offer seed-eating
birds the best of all worlds: highly nutritious food that is also easily
processed. And in the depths of winter, when a bird's food needs may
increase up to 20-fold, that is nothing to turn your beak up at.
/California naturalist David Lukas wrote about junco sex appeal
<http://www.nwf.org/NationalWildlife/article.cfm?issueID=127&articleID=1694>
in the February/March 2009 issue./
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