Feeding the Birds

There is debate about the advisability of putting food out for wild birds. I visited a bloke who puts out a few cupfuls of grain every day for the neighbourhood birds. I came across him because a new species turned up, but more on that later.

In the short time I was there, I saw a delightful parade of visitors at the feeder: a Little Corella, an Eastern Rosella, King Parrot, Noisy Miner, Spotted Dove, Crested Pigeon, and Rainbow Lorikeets. Even a Magpie-lark and a Little Raven came in as well.

Is feeding birds good or bad? There are sides to the argument. All the birds I saw are fairly common, fairly dominant birds – it is easy to encourage them and hard to entice the rarer, more obscure species. People who feed meat or bread find an abundance of magpies, butcherbirds and currawongs – do we want more of these bullying types in our gardens? People say, “Don’t feed cockatoos – they will soon be eating your house!”.

And there is the issue of health – a feeder that isn’t regularly cleaned can be a point for passing on diseases. And is the food good for birds? Bread is probably unhealthy for most creatures.

But on the other hand, human food is probably only a supplement – wild birds will meet most of their dietary needs from natural sources and we should keep it that way. Feeding birds or putting out water for them in a bird bath – these are valuable opportunities for us to get close to nature and feel the thrill of kinship with other creatures, appreciating their personalities and beauty.

And occasionally we see things unexpected. My grain-feeding friend in Drouin had a White-headed Pigeon (Columba leucomela) turn up. This is a bird from NSW and Qld that seems to be turning up in Victoria more regularly, probably because of climate change. This is the first report for this district. [It is said they love the invasive Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora), and they ‘consume buds, flowers, leaves, and ripe and unripe fruits of the camphor laurel year-round.’ (Wikipedia).] We once had a report from Strath Creek as well.

Of course, it didn’t come to the feeder while I was there!