birdsoup

 Some people feed birds all year round.  Others only feed in the colder months.  The latter group often asks about the best time to put a feeder out.  My response is that there is no preferred date or deadline.  If you are not going to feed all year, you can put out your feeder whenever the spirit moves you.

Sometimes people develop a date that has meaning for them.  One woman explained that her family has a tradition of setting up their bird feeder on Thanksgiving Day.  Another puts her feeders out when she puts away the patio furniture, signifying the end of summer and the coming of winter.  Yet another waits for the first forecasted snowfall of the year.  Or the first day with sub-freezing temperatures.

 Of course, if you enjoy the birds in your backyard, there is no real reason why you shouldn’t leave the feeder up all year.  A common reason people give for not feeding in the summer is that they want the birds to eat the insects in their yard during the summer.  This explanation fits into the category of an old wife’s tale. 

 I explain that birds generally fall into two different categories:  those that eat seeds and those that eat insects, bugs, and worms.  And, if you are a seed-eater, you are always a seed eater regardless of the season.  You may catch a few insects in summer, primarily to feed your young.  But mostly you eat seed every day of the year.  And vice versa, an insect or worm-eating bird such as a robin will never come to your feeder for bird seed. 

 It is interesting to note that this categorization of birds by their food preferences can also applied to migration.  Seed-eating birds can find seed all year, so they generally do not fly south for the winter.  However, insect-eating birds do migrate.  They don’t migrate because they don’t like the cold weather.  They migrate because that can’t find any insects to eat in cold weather.  So they move south to where the bugs are.