Turns Out, The Birds Can Feed Themselves

When Paul and I first moved to the country from the ‘burbs, I was all in on Mother Nature. One of the first things we did was erect a bird feeder that sat at the top of a hill just outside our main floor living space so that I had a clear view of the myriad birds who came to feed all year round.

I wasn’t really into birds until we moved. But the country changed that: I purchased some bird ID books, downloaded some apps, researched the best feed to attract the most species, found some old binoculars, and waited. I was not disappointed. Along with many birds I already knew, there were so many I’d never seen before including the regal pileated woodpecker. They’re massive, BTW.

That was in 2016. Ten years of bird watching later, I decided to to take down the feeders. I’d read one too many horror stories about how bird feeders are causing harm to the birds and their broader environment. Diseases and unnatural species gatherings were at the top of the list. There is still a case to be made to feed birds through our harsh Ontario winters but I’m unlikely to do it. And here’s why.

I don’t miss the birds at all. I thought I would. I thought I would grieve the loss but, instead, what has transpired is a more natural environment where the right-fit birds still come around. Crows, chickadees, nuthatches, song birds, goldfinches, wild turkeys and robins, house wrens who’ve set up shop in a dried out gourd that Paul had received as a gift.

We’d hardly had any robins around our place but, suddenly, this year they have made our home their home. A nest in the carport (2 babies of 3 survived, are grown now and hanging about), another nest in the smoke bush just outside my bedroom window. I wake up to the sound of robin song. It’s true that they rise with the sun as, apparently, do I.

To be fair, we do have quite a few plants, flowers, bushes and trees that birds are naturally drawn to for food, shelter, nesting, and refreshment. Our planted gardens are pollinator-focussed so they draw bees, butterflies, dragonflies, caterpillars, slugs, spiders 🥴, and the like.

Collateral Observations

With the absense of bird seed, we have way fewer squirrels and chipmunks and probably other small mammals I’ve never or rarely noticed. We did have a family of red squirrels living in the walls of our house this Spring (oh my god, babies are cute!) but they’re gone now and we will plug the hole so they don’t come back for the winter. Because there are fewer mammals, there are fewer hawks and owls and other birds of prey which, I confess, I miss.

Sometimes it takes the absence of something to notice its presence and in the case of no longer feeding the birds I’m noticing how much calmer and natural the rhythms of my days are now. We don’t have a cacophony, a flurry, of every kind of bird anymore. I couldn’t say why this makes a difference energetically but it does. It feels like the natural micro-ecosystem that exists on our acreage has breathed a sigh of relief and readjusted to that which is supposed to be.

Filling up bird feeders and attracting all the birds is an unnatural act. There is no call for it other than the human desire to be entertained and delighted. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing but, in this case, the critters were paying the price for my need of a hobby. The natural order of things has been restored. It’s gratifying to know that we offer an environment that serves the birds in a way that Mother Nature has intended since the days of the dinosaur.

And, also, I know the birds who make our home their home. I’ve watched the adult crows gather materials for their nests; I’ve watched them feed their youngsters from the grubs and worms they pull from the grass. The house wren family, the robin family. I know them and they know me. The relationship is deeper, more intimate. We have been chosen - they are here because our place offers them all the things they need and they do not have to compete with birds who come only for the seeds and leave again.

Repair

You know me, I usually need to find meaning and this is no different. I am relating this change in pace, this change in attracting external priorities to my recent months-long addiction/obsession/fascination with social media. I stopped feeding the birds around the same time I entered the Substack milieu. Since then, my brain has been rewired, asked to take in a whole lot information, opinions, beliefs, conflicts that previous to social media, I had not asked it to do. The desire for quiet and calm has become a need. My nervous system has tapped into the shift to natural rhythms outside my door and it is a very welcome balm. More than that, it has helped me to recall the feeling of my life pre-social media.

The chaos of the internet and, now, the real world is manufactured; unnatural. It robs us of our innate ability to recognize, crave and fall into the natural flow of our days, weeks, seasons. Restoring some balance to the environment outside my door has restored the balance within my body. It didn’t take long for Mother Nature to adjust to the lack of bird seed for the critters. Maybe a week before the superflous birds stopped coming. It feels like repair. And repair is what I can look forward to when I choose, once again, to stop feeding my brain the gratuitous seeds of social media.