LITMIR.BIZ

      FIG 17. Granivorous (seed-eating) species, like Yellowhammer, dominate at UK garden feeding stations, while insect-eating species tend to be less common. (Jill Pakenham)

      Similar findings were reported from Poland, where Tryjanowski et al. (2015) found that urban and rural areas differed in the availability of food, offered intentionally or unintentionally to wild birds during the winter months. Both intentional and unintentional food provision was greater within urban areas than it was in rural locations. While the number of bird feeders and feeding stations differed significantly between the two habitats, the proportion of feeders containing food was similar. Tryjanowkski found differences between the two habitats in the availability of several foodstuffs, with seed feeders and waste food significantly more common in the urban area and animal fat more common at rural sites.

      There also clear regional differences in the types of food being provided for wild birds at garden feeding stations in different countries. While the main foods provided at garden feeding stations in the UK and elsewhere in Europe are seed-based, in North American backyards we see the additional use of sugar solution feeders for hummingbirds, and in Australia we see many more high-protein foods provided (such as meat and cheese), reflecting the differing range of species more commonly encountered in Australian backyards.

      A BRIEF HISTORY OF FOODS AND FEEDERS

      Quite where our willingness to feed wild birds originated is unclear but it is likely that food scraps have been provided to wild birds over hundreds of generations. Perhaps the earliest written evidence of material encouraging the feeding of wild birds is that provided in ancient Hindu writings from the Vedic period (c. 1500–500 BCE). This material describes the practice of Bhuta Yajna, which was one of the five great sacrifices used to develop the spiritual growth of a man. Bhuta Yajna involved the placing of food offerings known as bali on the ground; these being intended for ‘animals, birds, insects, wandering outcastes and beings of the invisible worlds’.

      Wild bird feeding in the form that we know it today receives very little mention in historical documents and it is not until the 1800s that we see references encouraging or supporting the practice. Allen (1967) refers to the ornithotrophe, a device developed by John Freeman Milward Dovaston – a minor romantic poet and regular contributor of articles to Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History. The device was essentially a modified trough, fitted with rows of perches and filled with household and farmyard scraps. A man with an obvious talent for self-promotion, Dovaston promoted the device and its success in attracting birds through letters to the magazine penned under the pseudonym of Von Osdat. Reference to the device also made an appearance in notes to the preface of the first volume of Bewick’s A History of British Birds. Bird tables were certainly in use by the 1850s, and promotion of feeding of urban birds is mentioned as early as 1875, through a piece that appeared in the 16 February edition of the Edinburgh Evening News. This article noted that a society for feeding birds in winter had established 22 feeding stations across the town, recognising their important role in controlling insect pests.

      As Darryl Jones notes (Jones, 2018), perhaps one of the most important events in the development of bird feeding within the UK was the 1908 publication in English of a German book on how to attract and protect wild birds. Written by Martin Hieseman, the book was based on the work of Baron Hans Freiherr von Berlepsch, a nobleman who had spent a considerable amount of time conducting ornithological experiments on his large estate. Included within the publication were several ‘appliances’ that had been developed to provide wild birds with food. Of these, the ‘food bell’ and ‘food house’ would be recognisable today; a somewhat more outlandish appliance – though you can see where the Baron was coming from – was the ‘food tree’. This was a small spruce or fir tree over which a mixture of meat, bread, poppy flour, millet, oats, elderberries and seeds, bound together with beef or mutton fat, was poured. A smaller version of this appliance – the ‘food stick’ – presumably was aimed at those with less opportunity to produce small conifers quite so readily.