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["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Title: Re: [NAFEX] The bird pressure

Of course there are different ways to handle birds, too.  Feeding means you are giving them a source of food they wouldn't have in the wild, making them dependent on you.  Giving them their proper habitat, but NOT feeding them, can allow them to be self sufficient.
    On THAT thought, there are more birds you DO want than not.  Birds that eat only insects, or only seeds, usually mean less weeds and fewer pests.   And there are some like wrens that are both insect eaters and so aggressively territorial that if you give them habitat, they will keep all other birds away.  I know of a blueberry grower who put wren houses at the corners of a one acre blueberry patch and they kept all the fruit eating birds out.  When one house was wrecked in a storm, fruit eaters moved into that area of the patch.
    My son, who is in fish and wildlife, says all the wren species are territorial that way, so that if you provide (for example) a small pond with reeds and cattails, the marsh wrens will keep other birds away for some distaince around the pond.  
    So part of it is learning to give the birds what they need so that you can have the RIGHT kind of birds around.  My choice, for instance would be wrens, swallows, and bluebirds.  All are insect eaters, with the swallows scooping up the mosquitoes in particular, and you would still have some beautiful birds to look at, without them being dependent on you for food.
    
-Lon Rombough
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