As a kid growing up in Lexington, I took to nature study generally, and birdwatching in particular, with overflowing enthusiasm and at a very early age. One of my favorite days of the year back then, essentially my own private holiday, was the autumn day when my family put our bird feeders up in the yard for the winter.
We had a pole feeder that doled out mixed seed in the backyard, and a feeder perched on a window box on the front of the house that we filled with whole sunflower seeds. A tube feeder with thistle seed, beloved of goldfinches, hung from a large maple in the front yard, along with a mesh box that held suet.
I remember my impatience, once the feeders were up and filled, as I waited for birds to discover them. I’d move restlessly from window to window for hours, noting with excited satisfaction as blue jays, chickadees, song sparrows, and goldfinches finally zeroed in on the bounty. Several species now common in Massachusetts, such as the tufted titmouse and northern cardinal, had not yet moved north into our region. But gorgeous evening grosbeaks, much more common in those days, were fairly regular visitors. It was like Christmas, only without the anxiety.
I also remember with great clarity the nuanced emotions with which I watched this process. Some of my excitement, well known to birders, stemmed from the essentially acquisitive satisfaction of spotting and counting birds — a form of satisfaction shared with hunters and fishers. But added to that was a milder kind of joy: I felt like our generosity toward the birds, and their acceptance of that generosity, amounted to a special relationship. That feeling of connection with wild animals remains one of the deepest pleasures of my life.
My attitude toward bird-feeding, like so many other perspectives, has grown complicated in the decades since then. As I learned more about bird behavior and ecology, I found that the generous act of putting food out for birds can spawn unintended consequences. Some of these consequences don’t even have to do with birds: Seed spilled onto the ground, for example, can attract and subsidize unwanted mammalian visitors such as rats.
And as far as the birds go, some types of food humans put out are nutritionally inappropriate, amounting to junk food for birds. Dirty feeders can foment diseases, such as the conjunctivitis that house finches (another relatively recent arrival in our region) are notoriously susceptible to. Concentrations of songbirds at feeding stations can turn sparrows and chickadees into sitting ducks for patrolling Cooper’s hawks. And the act of artificially feeding wild animals of any kind can cause behavioral changes that can trigger complex and wildly unpredictable follow-on effects.
My complicated feelings about bird-feeding were recently shaken up when we added resources for birds at the office I work in: a heated birdbath (used intermittently but sometimes heavily by wrens and chickadees); seed-and-suet cakes, hung from shrubs, that attract everything from song sparrows to yellow-rumped warblers; and a transparent feeder, stuck to a window and filled with mixed seed, that is visited almost constantly during the day by a score of local individuals representing a half-dozen species.
We’re a bunch of biologists at BiodiversityWorks, and we all understand the complexities of subsidizing wild animals — including the potential downsides. But we also all share the inexplicable joy I felt as a child when birds take the food they’re offered. I expect the feeder is going to stay.
We will, of course, do what we can to minimize risk to our small friends: keeping the feeder clean, for example; marking the windows with stickers to reduce the risk of collision, and siting the feeder in a place that offers good visibility as well as shrub cover close at hand, to help our visitors avoid becoming lunch for a hawk. But we will all still be aware that, ultimately, we’re doing something that is just a little bit ethically suspect: manipulating wild animals for our own enjoyment.
These are, though, dark times. Wherever you fall on the political spectrum, you cannot avoid an awareness that our society is fractured, that anger and fear and hatred and violence are ascendant. Combine that with the short, dim days of winter, and you have a recipe for deep spiritual gloom. Among the best remedies I know of for that condition is seeking out positive interactions with the natural world. Our feeder visitors aren’t just fun to watch; they’re helping keep us sane.
In the past, I’ve generally urged people to think carefully before setting up a feeder or spreading seed on the ground. I guess that’s still my advice: Educate yourself, and be as responsible as you can.
But when life is painful, actions that are meant kindly and bring pleasure in return are about the only things that help. If you choose to feed the birds this winter, you won’t hear me complain.