by Darryl Jones
First, though, we must attempt to discern how and why people started to provide food for wild birds, and how these humble beginnings led to the global bird-food industry we have today (Chapter 2: “Crumbs to Corporations”). This examination of the history of feeding uncovered a major change in the practice of feeding, with the move from winter-only to year-round feeding in some places (Chapter 3: “The Big Change”). Having explored the scale and pattern of feeding, we ask whether all those feeders are affecting the distribution and behavior of birds (Chapter 4: “The Feeder Effect”). This is followed by a detailed account of how scientific studies of supplementary feeding are transforming what is known about the role of food in the life of birds (Chapter 5: “What Happens When We Feed?”)
The material covered to this point should provide the background necessary to tackle the controversial issues raised above. The crucial issues of disease and nutrition are explored with some trepidation in the next section (Chapter 6: “Tainted Table?”). Beyond the backyard, the provision of supplementary foods has been successfully employed in conservation programs throughout the world, sometimes with unexpected results (Chapter 7: “Feeding for a Purpose”).
But what about the people? Why do we feed birds anyway? Thankfully, a number of extremely important new studies have explored the many and complex reasons behind our participation in feeding. This is explored in Chapter 8 (“Reasons Why We Feed”).
By the end, what have we learned? And does it really matter anyway? In the final section (Chapter 9: “Bird Feeding Matters Even More Now”) I will argue that feeding is now a fundamentally significant component of the urban landscape where most of us live. This brings great opportunities as well as genuine risks.
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CRUMBS TO CORPORATIONS
The Extraordinary History and Growth of Bird Feeding
Shrewsbury in Shropshire, England, is a rather unimposing place to have such a prominent role in our story. It was a dull, overcast, and drizzly day when I visited in early November. It seemed to be somewhat out of the way, up in the remoter parts of the northern Midlands, yet despite driving along a maze of minor roads in a quiet rural landscape, we passed a steady succession of huge trucks heading in the same direction. We (and the trucks) were on our way to the massive CJ Wildlife complex, the headquarters of one of the largest bird-food companies in Europe. My guide was colleague and collaborator Jim Reynolds from the University of Birmingham, one of the numerous authorities I was visiting to talk about bird feeding in Great Britain. Jim has connections across the world as well as locally and had generously suggested I ac-company him to Shrewsbury, about an hour’s drive from Birmingham. I hoped such a trip might be possible: the CJ factory ships vast amounts of birdseed and feeding hardware throughout Great Britain and increasingly to Europe. Seeing this hub of the birdseed industry would provide an important perspective. But first, I learned suddenly, we were to visit Mrs. Irene Cuthill for a “quick cuppa.”
As we pulled up to Mrs. Cuthill’s humble house on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, Jim said, “Right on time for Irene’s famous scones. But this visit was much more than a tea break. I would like you to see something I think is central to understanding this whole bird-feeding phenomenon,” he explained as we waited at the front door. Irene appeared wearing a gray cardigan and floral apron. Over the following hour, she proceeded to dismantle any expectations I might have had about an English widow who fed the birds.
Typical of many streets built in prewar Britain, Irene’s front yard was minute although her backyard was more substantial, and even featured an ancient oak tree. “No idea how old it is,” Irene mused, “but it’s truly precious. When the children were here they lived in that tree. When they moved out, I thought, Let’s see if I can help another ‘family’ in some way. That year we had a lot of snow and the birds just looked desperate. All I did was put up a feeding tray, but in no time I had a few regular visitors: tits and sparrows, and robins on the ground below. It was nice to see them come, but they didn’t stay for long each visit. Something got me thinking about the garden from the bird’s point of view. And that’s when I realized just how bare it was. There was nowhere to hide or rest.” This was a revelation that led to big changes in that modest backyard. She added shrubs, a pile of dead branches, and some small berry-bearing trees, all her own idea. “I learned much later that what I was doing was called ‘wildlife gardening’; I just called it common sense.” And with growing enthusiasm came a willingness to try some of the brand-new products that were then starting to appear in the shops: fancy see-through hanging feeders, ready-made peanut cakes, and a strange tiny black seed that the locals called “thistle.”
She didn’t think much about it at the time, but when a series of unexpected species started to turn up, she began to wonder whether her place might just be a bit special. At first it was a few Siskins, then more and more Goldfinches, and recently even Blackcaps. “I knew our yard was rather different from most around here; sometimes I think people thought us a bit queer, with all these plants and feeders. But when these strange birds appeared, I thought, Blow the neighbors! It seems that the birds like something about the place. I think the secret was the food and the shelter.”
“I used to feed only in winter,” Irene explained. “I made my own suet balls from the Sunday roast lard and hung them in the trees. I started with the first frosts, usually, and stopped with the first signs of spring. We all knew that the birds needed to be able to look after themselves; that they might get too used to the handouts. But I reckoned that the birds are smarter than that. In October they hardly touch the feeders, they’re off in the woods feasting on berries.” It was a gradual thing, but Irene soon realized that she was providing a little food for most of the year. “I was a bit worried about it at first, but the birds seem perfectly happy.” Her hesitancy about feeding in the warmer months was finally put to rest when she was watching Springwatch on the BBC. “That funny chap, you know, was explained that feeding was completely fine at any time of the year. That was good enough for me!” Jim saw my blank expression. “Bill Oddie,” he explained.
For a keen bird watcher eager to see the birds up close, the increasing availability of various products was also a key element in the move away from winter-only feeding. “In the beginning I only fed homemade things: fat balls, kitchen scraps, and the odd handful of crumbs. And now I can get all these wonderful seed mixes, made just for birds, in the local supermarket! Jim tells me that all this stuff is made right here in Shrewsbury! What a world we live in!”
Jim was right. A short if convoluted drive away, is the vast complex of CJ Wildlife (address: The Rea, Upton Magna). Known until recently as CJ Wildbird Foods Ltd., the company has broadened its view to include a comprehensive range of products generally associated with promoting nature in urban areas (hence their new advertising motto: Bring more wildlife to your garden). The spectacular growth and diversification of this company from its origins in 1987 as a routine “sunflowers” packager to one of Europe’s largest wild-bird-food producers is a powerful example of the development of what is now a huge international industry. According to Chris Whittles, founder of CJs, the company he sold recently was making £19 million annually and, in addition to its main market in the UK, now operates in nine other European countries.1
The CJs (the letters are from Chris J. Whittles’s initials) complex could be just about any major enterprise engaged in large-scale transportation of goods, possibly something associated with rural enterprise given its location on a working farm. A series of massive anonymous-looking warehouses encircle a much older brick building from which rumbling noises emerge continuously. Huge trucks are parked in various docks, un-loading or receiving, before thundering off down the country road. It is not the kind of place you would feel comfortable wandering around without a guide. Thankfully, we were soon greeted by Martin George, a long-term employee of CJs and a recent graduate of the ornithology course Jim runs at Birmingham. Martin’s intimate knowledge and i
nsights concerning every aspect of the operation made the tour a fascinating exploration of the inner workings of the bird food machine.
I had assumed that a birdseed factory would be little more than a giant automated packaging machine. Not this place. From its earliest days, CJs made the decision to stand out from similar enterprises through a commitment to the highest quality in everything. Everyone knows what cheap, poor-quality birdseed looks (and often smells) like. Genuine quality starts with careful selection of suppliers and continuous assessment of the seed itself. As soon as the raw materials—the sunflower, corn, nyger, wheat, millet—arrive at the factory, all manner of checking, monitoring (of moisture levels, fungi, and many other factors), and cleansing techniques are undertaken: the rumbling sounds we could hear were the routine air blast-ing of all arriving seeds to remove dust and detritus. Deeper within the red-brick building we watched the massive mixing machines meticulously combining (in this case) sunflowers hearts and pieces, corn bits, and other ingredients in the same recipe developed by Chris Whittles in the early days. The resulting Hi-Energy No Mess seed mix, still the biggest seller in the ever-expanding array of specialist products, was being collected in 20-kilogram bags by the secure hands of two workers. A large proportion of the 250-strong workforce were locals, many with a farming background and an affinity for hard work.
In one of the other vast warehouses Martin showed us smaller au-tomatic bagging machines deftly sealing seed in exquisitely designed 1-kilogram bags (in this case, it’s Less Mess Sunflowers; they seem to have a knack for clear, no-nonsense product names). An immediately evident feature of all the products is the visual impact of the packaging; these packs feature high-resolution bird photographs and a see-through panel so the prospective purchaser can see what is within. The bags we observed happened to be labeled in Dutch, destined for the giant European distribution plant in the Netherlands; others were in German, Swedish, or Polish. In the next building we walked past seemingly endless storage shelves stacked to the lofty ceiling with every conceivable piece of feeding and wildlife gardening hardware—feeders, nest boxes, feeder stands, squirrel guards, even squirrel feeders—as well as the latest range of ultra-specialized products (my personal favorite: Organic Pate for Hedgehogs). Martin’s enthusiasm was infectious but the sheer scale and diversity was, frankly, overwhelming.
And while CJs may have been pioneers in the UK, these days they are certainly not alone. Competitors include Haith’s, Vine House Farm, Jacobi Jayne, Westland, Gardman, Henry Bell, and plenty more.2 Aggres-sive expansion and competition have been characteristic of the 2000s and show little sign of slowing. Reliable data for the UK are surprisingly difficult to find, but one estimate is that the industry turned over £550 million in 2009 and continues to grow.3
Across the Atlantic, the industry is both fiercer and more diverse. North American bird feed consumers are regarded as being well informed and selective, readily purchasing a bewildering array of separate products: species-specific seed mixes, squirrel guards, nutritional supplements, drinkers, and an astounding variety of feeders. These items are available from numerous outlets including large chain stores, mass merchandisers, and specialist stores: pet, aquarium, gardening, outdoor recreation, and, increasingly, birding outlets. Some successful examples of the latter are Duncraft (founded in 1952), Wild Birds Unlimited (starting in 1981), and Wild Bird Centers (first opening in 1985 in Washington, DC and now with one hundred stores around the country) to name just a few.4 And the industry is still growing. According to data collected by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, bird food sales were worth US$2.6 billion in 2001, US$3.35 billion in 2006, and US$4.07 billion in 2011; that’s almost a doubling in a decade. We can add a further US$969 million to the 2011 figure to account for all the “nonseed peripherals.”5
This is now a truly global industry. The United Nations estimates that the international production of the main seed types—sunflowers, nyger, and safflower—is growing at around 4% annually.6 The biggest markets are based in Europe and North America, and the key production countries, such as India, Myanmar, China, and eastern Europe, have been ex-porting bulk seed in staggering volumes.7 The amount of birdseed (which these days is overwhelmingly intended for wild rather than caged birds) sold during 2007 in the United States alone has imaginatively been pic-tured as filling over 22,000 railway hopper cars stretching for 252 miles (405 kilometers).8
How did we come so far in such a short time? This is a remarkable transformation from private practice to mass consumer behavior, from domestic leftovers to a multitude of finely tuned commercial products. The first mass-marketed seed and feeder products only appeared during the 1960s, and were slow to sell. Why would people spend their cash on some new seed pack when table scraps cost nothing? Why, in fact, did Mrs. Cuthill feel moved to start buying nyger seed and, fascinatingly, begin to feed her birds year round? It’s an intriguing tale of ethics, habits, marketing, science, hard sell, desperate conservation, and the mysteries of consumer behavior.
The Origins of Bird Feeding
If you really want to discover something about the beginnings of bird feeding you need to go beyond a typical Internet search. While that is the obvious way to start, you quickly find yourself in the realm of endlessly repeated anecdotes and definitive pronouncements from all sorts of ardent but not necessarily sound correspondents. The frustration of reading the same stories and statements with slight but important variations eventually led me to seek out many of the original sources, thereby opening up unexpected side-stories and red herrings. Such is the tedium and joy of being an archaeologist-cum-detective, discovering what the original author actually wrote and uncovering entirely new components of the story. As this excavation proceeded, it became clear that there was a genuine history to be described here. “Fieldwork” was required, beyond Google and Wikipedia, into the strange landscapes of the restricted entry sections of big libraries, early editions of long-defunct newspapers, old naturalists’ journals, and shared notes with colleagues from around the world. As has so often been the case, by far the bulk of what I was able to find comes from the same familiar places, namely the United Kingdom and the United States. Again, this will bias the story because I am also aware that bird feeding emerged with similar patterns in other countries, especially in Europe, but finding written historical material has proved elusive. The key exception is Germany, which has had an important influence on the development of bird feeding practices.
It is also important to acknowledge some of the key sources of information on which the narrative that follows is based. In the absence of a published account of the evolution of the industry in Britain, I am strongly indebted to Mr. Chris Whittles,9 whose personal perspectives were invaluable. In welcome contrast, the story for North America is now available in unusual detail in two impressive compilations written by Paul Baicich, Margaret Barker, and Carrol Henderson: Feeding Wild Birds: A Short History in America (2010) and the much more detailed Feeding Wild Birds in America (2015).10 These works were of immense value to this project, and I have borrowed heavily—but not uncritically—from them. It should also be stated that these sources are hardly disinterested reviewers: undeniably their views are those of industry insiders. The Feeding Wild Birds booklet, for instance, was commissioned by Wild Bird Centers of America, Inc., one of the vigorous specialist bird franchises in North America. For British and European materials I am also greatly indebted to David Clark from London (another graduate of the Birmingham ornithology course) for his forensic scrutiny of many early newspaper sources.
Some of the older stories unearthed are fascinating, and I am happy to retell the more colorful and informative ones. Many, however, are not really about the origins of bird feeding per se; they are often examples of something the writer found to be unusual or worthy of comment, a cultural practice or a description of a piece of feeding equipment. What we are more interested in here are the practices and ideas that led to the modern approach—organized, planned, costing som
ething—to wild bird feeding around our homes. But that will become clearer later.
Having warned against definitive statements, let me make one of my own. It may be provocative but is essential for where we are heading.
The spontaneous offering of food to wild birds is probably global.
Wherever fries (“chips”) are thrown to the gulls at the beach or bread is offered to ducks at the pond, when we feed the pigeons in the town square or spread crumbs on the snow-covered windowsill, the impetus is the same. It is the unspoken, somewhat mysterious—almost innate— response to an animal seeking something to eat or caught in a potentially stressful situation. Not everyone responds, but perhaps most people do. This inclination, if not universal, is certainly cross-cultural. I have seen Bornean women leaving out leftover rice for Fireback Pheasants, Nepali Sherpas tossing crusts to Spotted Great Rosefinches high in the Himala-yas, and Inuit hunters throwing seal fat to Snowy Owls. In the process of researching this book people from around the world told me stories of typical and spontaneous bird feeding: bread or grain or fruit tossed to West Peruvian Doves in Lima, Peru; Brehm’s Tiger Parrots in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea; Wattled Honeyeaters in the Samoan Is-lands; Namaqua Doves in Khartoum, Sudan. While the species and locations change, the essential elements of these interactions don’t. People everywhere tend to respond to the approach of a wild bird by sharing their food. This reaction also seems to be more likely if there is obvious need (such as during harsh weather) or the creature is small and cute or “special” (rare, unusual, albino), but not necessarily.
My point is that this form of spontaneous wild bird feeding is common, normal, and possibly instinctual. To search for its origins is simple folly. I would contend that it was a response present among our earliest human ancestors. It may even be regarded as an indication of authentic recent human evolution, along with conceptual language, symbolic art, and religious practice. Something significant occurred the day some distant ancestor offered sustenance to the sparrows hopping around the campsite rather than seeing them as hors d’oeuvres.
