Ground Feeding: Yah or Nah?

The Feathered Desert Podcast

Summary: Ground feeding can be quite controversial. Join Cheryl and Kiersten as they tackle this topic talking about the good and bad, and giving s few tips on doing it responsibly.

For our hearing impaired listeners, a transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.

Show Notes:

Seed Block Recipe:

Bird Seed Block Recipe

Ingredients Tools

5 cups birdseed Large mixing bowl

½ cup Bark Butter (optional)* Whisk or Fork

1 cup warm water Spoon

2 packets unflavored gelatin Mold-muffin tin

No sugar added dried fruit (optional)

Directions

1. Arrange dried fruit in tin in desired pattern. (optional)
2. Place warm water in mixing bowl. Sprinkle in gelatin. Whisk until dissolved.
3. Whisk in Bark Butter until mostly dispersed (may have few chunks). Mix in birdseed and more dried fruit if desired. Stir until well combined.
4. Spoon mixture into mold and press. Let sit for 24 hours.
5. Gently flip over mold to release cakes. Let sit another 24 hours to dry completely. Store in dry area.
6. Place on flat, heavy plate or flat paving stone. Enjoy watching your birds!

*Please do not substitute peanut butter for Bark Butter. Peanut butter has too much sugar and peanut oils which are not good for the birds. Bark Butter is formulated specifically to give birds balanced high protein nutrition with added calcium. You do not need to add it if you don’t like.

Background bird song: Naturescapes Backyard Birds www.naturescapes.com

Our email address, please reach out with comments, questions, or suggestions: [e-mail]

Transcript

Host Voice: Welcome to the Feathered Desert a podcast all about desert bird feeding in the Southwest region of the United States. (bird calls and songs play)

Kiersten – Intro: Today’s Feathered Desert episode is about a slightly controversial topic and that is ground feeding birds. We’re going to talk about should we do it or should we not. It is a very polarized issue especially in the Phoenix Valley where many areas have bans on bird feeding.

Cheryl- First let’s start off with a definition of what ground feeding birds is. When we talk about ground feeding birds, we mean putting food on the ground to intentionally attract birds to a specific area. Whether that is loose seed, block seed, or bread (which we do not recommend), if you are placing it on the ground or in a dish on the ground, this is considered ground feeding.

Kiersten – The title of the episode is Ground Feeding: Yah or Nah so let’s look at some of the Yah first. When you do ground feed you will get a lot of birds. So, if your goal is to attract birds to your yard, you will definitely do it with ground feeding. The types of birds you can attract in the Phoenix Valley will include House Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Inca Doves, Collared Doves, and Rock Pigeons when you ground feed. If you live in the right area, you could attract Gambel’s Quail as well. That’s all I’ve got for the Yah, honestly.

Cheryl – Let’s move on to the Nah’s, then. The first Nah is that you’ll attract a lot of House Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Inca Doves, Collared Doves, and Rock Pigeons when you ground feed. These are the types of birds that most people don’t want to attract to their yards. They are large, eat a lot of food and leave behind a lot of poo.

Kiersten – Speaking of poo that leads us to Nah number two. When you ground feed, you’re encouraging birds to walk through their own, and other birds’, feces. Birds are actually very clean animals. They do not want to get their feet or feathers soiled because that directly affects their health and ability to fly well. In the wild, they do not walk through their own feces to get to food nor do they overcrowd an area with a limited amount of food. When we offer them a resource that they cannot turn down, such as a large quantity of food in one place it attracts too many birds that will stay too long and come in contact with a lot of poo. Coming in contact with this poo facilitates the transmission of diseases.

Disease transmission is Nah number three. Ground feeding birds can transmit diseases like avian flu, aspergillosis, salmonellosis, avian pox, and mycoplasmal conjunctivitis aka House Finch Eye Disease. These diseases can spread between birds easily at a ground feeding site because it attracts a lot of birds to one area that might not encounter each other in the wild. The other problem it that many of these diseases are zoonotic which means they can be transmitted from birds to people. People with a compromised immune system are especially susceptible.

Cheryl – Nah Number 4 is how much your neighbors are going to hate you. The larger doves and pigeons that you will be attracting to our yard with ground feeding will not just stay in your yard. They will sit on your neighbor’s roof, fence, or trees just as they will do in your yard. When they begin to poo in large quantities or make a lot of noise, your neighbors may get a it upset. Also depending on where you live, the city may have a ban on ground feeding birds. If your neighbor complains the city will get involved.

So…our recommendation is to avoid ground feeding. Using feeders that hang, either tube feeders or cylinder feeders, reduces the number of birds that can eat in one area at one time and limits the amount of food they have access to at one time. Birds that forage on the ground will have access to some of this food also because some of the food will fall on the ground as birds eat. When using hanging feeders, you will attract fewer ground feeding birds.

Kiersten – Now we know some of you really like ground feeding, especially when you have quail that visit your yard, so we have a few tips to allow you to continue enjoying your bird feeding hobby while keeping the birds and yourself healthy and keeping your neighbors happy, too.

One thing you can do is use a good quality food with no fillers or shells that attract nothing but doves and pigeons. Something like a No-Mess food, carried by Wild Birds Unlimited or other specialty bird feeding stores, that contains shelled black oil sunflower seeds, peanut chips, and a bit of millet or a No-Mess Quail Blend that is shelled millet, a tiny amount of cracked corn, and some shelled black oil sunflowers. When you use this food only sprinkle a handful at a time, not the entire 20-pound bag at once. This will limit the resource which in turn limits the number of birds that will visit the area at one time, but you’ll still get to see the birds that you love to see.

Cheryl - Another way to responsibly ground feed is to use smaller seed blocks than what are typically sold in stores. The ground feeding blocks typically sold are usually about 4 pounds of seed and attract too many birds. Either break down the larger blocks and use only small pieces at a time, or make your own using a recipe with good quality seed, unflavored gelatin, and Bark Butter. We’ll include a recipe in our show notes that is easy to make and healthy for the birds! Put your small, muffin sized seed blocks out when you know the quail will be visiting. This will let the quail eat the block and prevent too many doves and pigeons from showing up.

Kiersten – It think we both side on the side of Nah for ground feeding birds. There is definitely more cons than pros, so we will encourage all our listeners to use hanging feeders when feeding the birds. For a good discussion of tube feeders versus cylinder feeders check out our episode by that name. For those of you who just can’t give up ground feeding please consider our tips and check out the recipe for seed blocks in our show notes.