RSPB bird feeding advice

This has been very well understood by boffins for a long time now. Realistically, all feeding is bad, you end with with a very high density of species that have no business being right next to each other.

The RSPB (and others) make a boat load of money from selling food and feeders so there's been a lot of heads buried in the sand about it all. There's case that the outreach and awareness benefits of bird feeders outweigh the negativies if the feeding is done carefully, but its difficult to quantify.

Feed birds => make birds sick

Feed birds => disproportionately benefit particular species

are very simple to demonstrate though.

I stopped feeding a long while ago - my main motivation was the rats, despite having two terriers! I’m lucky to have a large half acre garden (small semi house!)  that I “manage” for wildlife. As posted elsewhere I leave plants to seed and have just done my spring clean by cutting back. Goldfinches are a common site on the japanese anemone seed heads. 
I did start feeding the fox but then quickly realised that I wasn’t doing anyone any favours, I’ve observed it on my wildlife camera sniffing round an area where I had rats. A few days later, large holes and no rats!

I stopped when there were so many nesting in my hedges that my neighbours cat/s were having a field day. Shame as I really enjoyed the variety of birds we would get visiting but not so much fun burying yet another poor bugger left on my lawn.

I never bothered, next door had a bird table , the food fell to the ground consequence he was plagued by a badger digging under his fence on a regular basis.

This advice will not go down well with a lot of people. However it is so important when we do feed, that is done totally with the birds in mind, not only for our benefit. We’ve always thoroughly cleaned and swapped our feeders. Always changed the drinking and birdbath water. Sadly many people aren’t as fastidious as our household. 
There is so much joy though to watch finches feeding from the natural seeds. Also we can still use other food - mealworms and fatballs, again with cleanliness in mind.

As ever education is key. 

Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea.

We feed the birds. Mostly it's TV for our three indoor cats.  Fat balls get chomped in winter (shush now), the peanuts were a complete waste of money, mixed seeds they absolutely tear through.

Other predators aren't an issue to the best of my knowledge, there's a black cat which visits occasionally but rarely and it's skittish.

Probably the biggest beneficiary of my bird feeder is the local sparrowhawk. There's a gap in next door's hedge roughly in line with the mealworm tube, and all too often I'll see a streak of grey/brown and a puff of feathers near the feeder as some hapless songbird meets its maker. 

Posted by: Scapegoat

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Probably the biggest beneficiary of my bird feeder is the local sparrowhawk. There's a gap in next door's hedge roughly in line with the mealworm tube, and all too often I'll see a streak of grey/brown and a puff of feathers near the feeder as some hapless songbird meets its maker. 

I guess that still counts as "feeding the birds"?

I'll stop feeding them at the end of the month and start again in autumn. A lot of seed companies are not going to be happy!

Posted by: Scapegoat

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Probably the biggest beneficiary of my bird feeder is the local sparrowhawk

So putting nuts out still counts as "feeding the birds", even if it's indirect!  😉

The birds usually find their own food during June - October anyway. I've been reading a few wildlife facebook pages today and it's sad to read that quite a few people will not comply.

Yes our local sparrowhawk will miss it's weekly take-a-way buffet.

When did bird feedong become year round anyway?

I am sure blue peter used to tell us it was time to feed the birds and then make some fatty seed yoghurt tubs with string in.