Feeding Wild Birds

[fuzzi]

The government operates on the "Peter Principle" and ends up with incompetent people making bad decisions.

Starlings have been a problem for decades, probably even a century. I don't know what prompted the decision to start poisoniing them but suspect it had something to do with amoount of harvested grain they were eating in the Dakotas.

In China the government decided that sparrows were eating too much grain, and killed millions. Then the insects that the sparrows had been eating ate the grain. People starved to death.

https://www.historydefined.net/how-killing-sparrows-led-to-one-of-the-greatest-famines-in-history/

 

[shawluvsbirds]

In China the government decided that sparrows were eating too much grain, and killed millions. Then the insects that the sparrows had been eating ate the grain. People starved to death.

https://www.historydefined.net/how-killing-sparrows-led-to-one-of-the-greatest-famines-in-history/

Thank you for that! That was a very good read.

 

[sourland]

Basset people were at the club this weekend, and I stayed away because they were aggravating the last time they used our grounds. Stopped in this afternoon to check on things and collect ground use fee. While they were there and I was gone, the Phoebes started and completed their nest on the porch. They sure have become accustomed to people.

 

[R2elk]

 

[sourland]

View attachment 3802995

As of late they are year round residents here. I can't remember when our last extended hard freeze took place. In addition to the always available worms there are berries from: winterberry, multiflora rose, silky dogwood, autumn olive and a couple of shrubs that I do not know the name.

 

[R2elk]

As of late they are year round residents here. I can't remember when our last extended hard freeze took place. In addition to the always available worms there are berries from: winterberry, multiflora rose, silky dogwood, autumn olive and a couple of shrubs that I do not know the name.

There is usually one male here all winter. There were never any here until the first time the Nanking cherries got ripe. They've been here ever since.

 

[R2elk]

Today's visitor.

 

[sourland]

Today's visitor.
View attachment 3805043View attachment 3805044

A jake or a bearded hen, and is it carrying domestic DNA?

 

[R2elk]

A jake or a bearded hen, and is it carrying domestic DNA?

Mature tom. Rumor has it that it came from in town making it unlikely to have domestic lineage.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

In the Jemez Springs/ Fenton Lake area of New Mexico, there are/ were wild turkeys with splashes of white, descended from domestics that escaped from a local rancher in the area. I saw some in about 1981, I don't know if they're still up there and I don't remember hearing when the original white turkeys got loose.