Birdfeeders

I just came across a very interesting study. Margaret Brittingham and Stanley Temple, researchers in Wisconsin, studied black-capped chickadees and compared the populations that had access to bird feeders to those who did not. Even though chickadees only got about 25% of their daily food from bird feeders, the researchers found that the birds using the feeders had a higher winter survival rate than the birds who did not have access to feeders. The most shocking discovery is that 69% of the chickedees who regularly visited backyard bird feeders survived the winter. However, only 37% of chickadees not visiting bird feeders made it through the winter! Let’s keep our bird feeders full throughout the winter and do our part to help the struggling song bird populations.