by Darryl Jones
Believe it or not, this bit of pseudoanthropology actually helps clarify our quest for the origins of contemporary wild bird feeding. The stories and anecdotes may be fascinating and potentially edifying but they tell us little about where bird tables came from, why tube feeders are important, and why people went out and bought them in the first place. People everywhere opportunistically feed birds that they encounter, but not everyone does so regularly, using purpose-made or purchased items deliberately to help attract them closer. I would describe this style of feeding as:
Systematic, intentional provisioning of foods for wild birds involving a level of planning and tangible cost, either in time or money or both.
This type of bird feeding is deliberate, planned and purposeful. As short-hand, I will call it “organized feeding” to distinguish it from the simpler “spontaneous feeding.” It’s the difference, for example, between feeding birds by discarding the crumbs from the table and the regular, planned provision of food prepared or purchased specifically for that purpose. This distinction became clear to me while investigating duck feeding in a suburban park with my colleague Renee Chapman.11 While a lot of people and waterfowl were interacting, most of the items offered were discards from picnic lunches. Even though the feeders had probably anticipated feeding, almost none of the items they distributed had been purchased for this purpose (we asked): this was spontaneous feeding. In contrast, a construction worker routinely came to the pond to eat his lunch (home-prepared sandwiches) but he also distributed cooked rice prepared specifically for feeding ducks: this was organized feeding. Our quest, therefore, is to see if we can discover how both versions of wild bird feeding have evolved and developed.
A Tentative History of Wild Bird Feeding
Birds feature everywhere in ancient cultural records, especially in the religious texts from many traditions. This is a rich seam followed in Mark Cocker’s Birds and People,12 the outstanding compendium of the way birds have featured in cultures throughout the world. Birds are depicted as spirit guides and intermediaries, villains and tricksters, agents of evil and even as deities (with corvids—crows and ravens—being mentioned remarkably often). Ancient and medieval writers also employed birds as metaphors, exemplars, and similes (“You will rise up on wings like ea-gles,” Isaiah 40:31). Real birds—as opposed to literary devices or religious motifs—appear less often, and where they do, they often feature as game to be hunted, potentially dangerous wildlife, or occupants of remote or desolate locations.
As far as I have been able to determine, the very earliest mention of the feeding of wild birds is found in Hindu writings of the Vedic era, at least 3500 years ago. These texts describe the daily requirement for orthodox Hindus to practice bhutayajna, one of the panchamahayajnas, the “five great sacrifices” designed to mitigate the accumulation of negative karma.13 The bhutayajna stipulates the provision of food, traditionally rice cakes, for birds but also “dogs, insects, wandering outcasts, and beings of the invisible worlds.” Given that this remains a standard practice of many contemporary Hindus, it surely is the longest running form of organized wild bird feeding.
No civilization can claim a stronger relationship between birds and its religious life, however, than that of the ancient Egyptians.14 While a number of species feature in Egyptian writings and rituals, as divine representatives on earth or as metaphors for divine attributes, two species, the Sacred Ibis and the Peregrine Falcon, predominate in this spiritual landscape. The vast numbers of ibis (sacred to the god Thoth) mummies involved (Saqqâra alone holds 1.5 million; several sites were capable of processing 10,000 birds annually) have been well documented, but less well known are the millions of falcons (representatives of Horus) that were employed in a similar fashion.15
An obvious logistical question arises: How did the Egyptians acquire the birds needed in such numbers? We know through ancient administra-tive texts that both species were raised specifically in captivity for such purposes as well as being harvested in huge numbers from the wild. To enhance the steady demand for falcons, a stipend was provided by the royal household to the priests to be used for the maintenance of fields dedicated to provisioning falcons with food; a statue commemorating a man named Djedhor describes how he “prepared the food of the falcons living in the land.” Similarly, fields were set aside for exclusive use by ibis and were overseen by priestly wardens. Dating from about 700 BCE, this must surely be the earliest form of mass, well-organized, planned bird feeding. This was intentional provisioning for the living birds; when they were dedicated (which involved capture, ritual killing, and mummification), food was also provided for their journey accompanying the deceased to the afterlife: recent X-ray examinations of ibis mummies have discovered special foods inserted into their bills during preparation.16
Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, the earliest writings possibly associated with birds and feeding are thought to be certain passages from the book of Leviticus (written around 1440 BCE). Among the various laws proclaimed is an admonition for some of the harvest—the grain growing at the edges of the field and the fallen gleanings—to be left in place “for the poor and the foreigner among you” (Leviticus 23:9). To this list of unfortunates some scholars have added birds, although this has been contested. A much more characteristic theme is found in the New Testament, in the gospels Luke and Matthew (ca. 80s or 90s CE), of God’s benevolence and care as exemplified by his provision of food for the birds (for example: “Consider the ravens; they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them” (Luke 12:24). This is a powerful image: God as bird feeder, who cares even for the lowly sparrow (Matthew 10:29). Elsewhere in the New Testament, birds are portrayed as agents of wasted opportunity in Jesus’s parable of the sower (Matthew 13:4), consuming the metaphorical “seed as the Good News” carelessly cast onto the path rather than onto the tilled soil. These would have been effective metaphors for Jesus’s rural audience, who would have been familiar with the local birds ready to scavenge any seed they could. For our current purposes, this reminds us of those instances when bird feeding occurs against our wishes: the unwelcome species at the feeder; those aggressive waterbirds that invade the picnic; the scavengers of human food wastes.
A final biblical example of a feeding interaction disturbingly reverses the expected arrangements: God directed the prophet Elijah to await further instructions from a cave in the dry and remote Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan River. How can he possibly survive? By wild bird feeding with a difference. “Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening” (1 Kings 17:6; ca. 550 BCE). How’s that for deliberate, systematic, and regular provisioning of species-appropriate sustenance?
In reality, however, the historical record—at least the component available in English—is strangely silent (ignoring the Egyptians for the moment) about what we would accept as just about any form of bird feeding from the first century CE until somewhere in the eighteenth. Maybe other things were happening—the Dark Ages, the Crusades, the Reformation— but writers, philosophers, and journalists seem to have missed the feeding undoubtedly occurring in their very own streets and villages. In all seriousness, that is the most likely explanation: it was so familiar and commonplace—so ordinary—as to be unworthy of comment.
There are a few worthy exceptions to this dearth of historical detail, although their veracity may be questionable, both involving Roman Catho-lic saints. The first features the somewhat opaque Scottish figure Saint Serf (or Serbán) (ca. 500–583) of Fife.17 Among numerous highly improbable adventures (including seven years as pope in Rome) and the usual series of miracles, it was his apparent “taming of a wild robin by the act of hand feeding” that has often warranted mention. Although not directly related to feeding, Saint Cuthbert of Northumberland (634–687) also deserves attention here in the context of a very early concern for bird conservation. Arguably the most famous saint of Anglo-Saxon England, Cuthbert is today recognized for enacting th
e world’s first bird-protection laws. During a spiritual retreat on the nearby Farne Islands, Saint Cuthbert used his authority as bishop of Lindisfarne to declare legal protection for the eider ducks and other seabirds that were being harvested unsustainably by fishermen.18 These laws—literally centuries ahead of their time—remain in place today.
Saint Francis of Assisi19 (ca. 1181–1226) is venerated for his revolutionary ideas on many topics, but of particular relevance here is his conception of the relationship between humanity and nature. Francis regarded the natural world as “the mirror of God,” and therefore all animals were fellow creatures to be treated with appropriate respect. He famously preached to flocks of birds gathered expectantly beside the road—although there is no mention of him actually feeding them. He does, however, convince some irate villagers to feed a starving wolf instead of killing it. The legend says they did so.
The long slow centuries without much reference to bird feeding come to a whimsical end with the advent of the era of broad circulation newspapers, especially in England. For example, on one apparently slow news day in 1787, the Northampton Mercury felt it “worthy of Remark,” that a “Pair of wild Sparrows have built a Nest and hatched their Eggs in the kitchen,” and that the “Mistress of the House often feeds the young Ones.”20 Furthermore, a predilection to bird feeding may be an indicator of moral character according to a character reference tended to a Scottish court. The accused murderer, according to an acquaintance, was a “kind and mild man of a sensitive nature. He used to carry crumbs of bread for the purpose of feeding birds.”21 We do not know whether this swayed the jury.
Scrounging for Crumbs
Almost a century later in the United States, Henry David Thoreau (1817– 1862) is detailing his observations of nature and philosophy during his experience of influential solitude spent in the woods at Walden Pond in Massachusetts. His masterpiece, Walden; or, Life in the Woods,22 covers a broad canvas but also describes his encounters with and impressions of a wide variety of animals. Published in 1854 but covering the years 1845–1846, the date of 1845 is widely cited as indicating that bird feeding was already under way in America.23 The frequency with which this claim has been made provoked me to reread a book that moved and inspired me as a young ecologist many years previously. Immersing myself once again in the beautiful prose with more mature (and possibly more cynical) eyes was bracing and refreshing but also heartbreaking as he describes a world now lost forever. But also hopeful because his experiences are equally concerned with our personal attitude as much as place: anyone, anywhere can appreciate whatever element of nature is available, from the inner-city apartment balcony to the solitary hut in the woods. For Thoreau, this required a trained eye and a patient soul.
Walden is a formidably honest exploration of a personal relationship with nature on its own terms. Thoreau quotes an ancient Hindu proverb: “An abode without birds is like a meat without seasoning” and goes on to say, “Such was not my abode, for I found myself suddenly neighbors to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but by having caged myself near them.” His encounters with a vast array of species—many now rare or gone—fill the book with wonderfully moving stories. But what of feeding? Where does the significance of the claim of 1845 lay? There are descrip-tions of a French-Canadian visitor sharing his fire-cooked potato with a wild chickadee and of Thoreau himself hand-feeding cheese to red squirrels and even a rat. Finally, I found the following observations:
In the course of the winter I threw out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had not got ripe, on to the snow-crust by my door, and was amused by watching the motions of the animals [squirrels, jays, and chickadees] which were baited by it.
A little flock of these titmice came daily to pick a dinner from my wood-pile, or the crumbs at my door. (183–184)
That, as far as I can ascertain, is it; statements of such magnitude that the year 1845 is nominated as the first mention of wild bird feeding in the United States. In the absence of other published accounts, this may be technically accurate. For our present purposes, however, it provides little beyond the rather obvious proposition that New Englanders, like everyone else, were also tossing scraps to visiting birds.
Whatever the significance of that year, things were indeed beginning to change during the mid- to late 1800s, on both sides of the Atlantic. The first tangible signs of organized, systematic, even commercial wild bird feeding began to emerge during this period.24 Perhaps surprisingly for the times, numerous US women were early advocates of feeding wild birds, in large part as an alternative to the accelerating hunting, trapping, and deliberate killing of birds. Titles such as Birdcraft (1985) by Mable Osgood Wright and Birds of Village and Field (1898) by Florence Merriam Bailey provided detailed observations as well as practical instructions on how and what to feed birds. The latter includes a description of a Mrs. Daven-port who made her own “bird bread” of one-third wheat and two-thirds Indian meal (a mixture that did not freeze) and presented it on a special feeding station.25 These are undeniable indications of organized bird feeding. It was certainly not common yet but was definitely on its way.
The publication mentioned earlier—Feeding Wild Birds—makes a strong case for the impetus of such early promotion of feeding in North America as being related directly to the fledgling bird-protection movement, itself a reaction to the colossal scale of bird slaughter and waste associated with the fashion plumes industry.26 Peaking around the turn of the twentieth century, untold numbers (5 million in 1885 alone) of birds, particularly egrets, were collected for stylish ladies’ bonnets, although entire woodpeckers and dead sparrows were also commonly embroidered on many a high-society blouse. Organized opposition to this destruction led directly to the formation of organizations such as the Audubon Society and the eventual enactment of bird-protection laws and statutes. Feeding rather than killing birds was advocated from the first edition of Audubon’s new Bird-Lore magazine in 1899, with Isabel Eaton encouraging teachers in particular to nurture their pupils’ interests in nature study by “coaxing [the birds] onto the window shelf with a free lunch.”27
The First Feeding Devices
A definite contender for physical evidence of the start of modern bird feeding in the United Kingdom would have to be the Ornithotrophe, the world’s first wild bird feeding device (and operated only eighteen miles away from Shrewsbury). Invented by John Freeman Dovaston (1782–1854) from Shropshire in 1825,28 this construction (he described it as a “bird feeding trencher”) was a modified wooden cattle trough fitted with rows of paral-lel perches and filled with a variety of domestic and farmyard food scraps. In his meticulous notes, Dovaston recorded twenty-three species of birds using his device over the winter. Unfortunately, it appears that the Ornithotrophe did not catch on, with subsequent references to the device disappearing from all records.29
As the Industrial Revolution rolled on in Britain and Europe, significant sections of society in North America and Europe were becoming relatively wealthy and increasingly urbanized. The importance of the private garden as an indicator of affluence and as place of leisure and refuge was a feature of this era. In David Callahan’s fascinating History of Birdwatching in 100 Objects30 (a replica of Neil MacGregor’s slightly more ambitious A History of the World in 100 Objects) there are several items of direct relevance to our present discussion, the first being the advent of the “wildlife garden.” Callahan identifies the start of this movement as circa 1835 in England and its flourishing during the long Victorian era that followed. As well as providing an aesthetically tasteful setting to escape from the industrial landscapes that characterized the era, a growing number of private land-holders began to perceive of their lands as more than pleasure gardens. Initially associated with larger estates that had the financial capacity for extensive plantings and maintenance, the defining feature of these wildlife gardens was the provision of habitat. This could be the revegetation of denuded waterways or simply the addition of bird-friendly shrubs in a typical
smaller garden. At this stage, commercial feeders would have been unknown but birdbaths, either the fashionable stoneware pedicel model or the improvised washbasin on a stand version, became a standard feature.
Within twenty years, however, the bird table had made its first appearance. The prototype of the familiar garden “little house” design appears around 1850 according to Callahan,31 providing the basic horizontal platform for bird food, sometimes with some sort of a roof for protection from the weather. At this time the construction was still very much do-it-yourself; the widely available commercial models were almost a century away, although simple plans for various designs were in general circulation. The food presented would also have been homemade or homegrown. Grain, if any, would have been originally intended for the domestic fowl but more likely was the widely cited “scraps”: vegetable peelings, table leftovers, and spoiled or stale food. These were the days when, for the great majority, little would have been discarded as waste; feeding birds with kitchen scraps would have appeared sensible and probably virtuous. Nonetheless, the pattern of provisioning was fairly sporadic, opportunistic, and—for the birds—unpredictable.
Climatic Cataclysms
Reporting on the impact of extreme weather events on birds had long been a feature of the British press. In February 1776, the Ipswich Journal noted during one prolonged winter storm:
