bird feeders

dicky82

just wondering peoples opinions on bird feeders this time of year, people have mixed views, should we leave the feeders out as it can make the wild birds lazy and dependant and thus causes the new birds that will be hatching soon to only seek food from feeders and not to use their natural hunting skills to catch bugs and sorce natural seeds and friut??
on the other hand if you keep the food available you increase bird numbers in your garden??

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Firstly, this is probably better suited to the Nature and Birdwatching Forum.

All you say is total nonsense.

Current thinking is that birds should be fed all year round. It provides a vital source of food to adults, while they feed caterpillars etc to their young. It does not cause them to become lazy. The huge reduction in garden feeding activity in July/August proves this.
There are many reasons for all year feeding.

The point of feeding birds is not to increase the number of birds in your garden but to provide food for birds.

Sigma Force

If you keep feeding them more birds will visit your garden hence increases the number of birds in your garden.

You should feed them year round, winter time is best for more high calorie foods like fat balls in summer you could just stick with seeds and bits of fruit and meal worms etc. just to vary it a bit.

We've been feeding the birds all year round and it looks like the cold got to a lot of them no robins in our garden anymore :-(
It doesn't make them lazy at all, if you feed in a bird feeder rather than on a bird table they still have to work to get at the food.
The birds in our garden will still pick up wild food and go mad for the thistles and other weedy planty things in the garden.

Brought the bird bath down to to where the food is, about 20 feet from it and they use that a lot water is just as important.

Another option is to plant trees and shrubs that birds will use so they can help themselves.

Apple trees are great.

ghost_ie

Guineapigrescue wrote: »

We've been feeding the birds all year round and it looks like the cold got to a lot of them no robins in our garden anymore :-(

I've been feeding the birds all year round too and saw two robins in the garden last week. Also 13 sparrows

I have a problem which someone may be able to help with, though. The youngest dog (a jack russell cross) goes daft if she sees birds at the feeder or in the bushes and chases them. It's only a small garden and last year she caught a young sparrow. I told her to drop and leave it, which she did, but the little thing died within minutes. There wasn't a mark on it - it just died of fright. Anyway, can anyone suggest how to stop her chasing the birds? The other two dogs don't bother about them