It's so hard to know what to do and if you are helping them! On really hot day I put a big dish of water out on my balcony, for our crow population. They have heavy bodies and all those black feathers - you can see them panting when they land on the railing. But am I making them dependent on my dish of water?
That sounds like a great idea, Janet! And in general, having a bird feeder out is wonderful -- just not when there's a bird plague.
And probably especially not when there's a bird plague and so all the birds come to the only bird feeder in town, which was mine.
And then especially *especially* not when all the birds come to my bird feeder, and it's also right next to my apartment and they start watching me and throwing themselves against the window to try to get me to haul out the ol' hot-and-sour soup container to fill up the feeder and they're also having huge fights on my neighbors' porches. Probably at that point <sigh ...> I gotta make myself shut it down. Much as it pains me.
*Your* situation, however, sounds ideal. Maybe eventually, when the bird plague dies down, I can go back to something more sane like that? Fingers crossed.
A gripping read as always. May the birds recover. I'm still seeing jays and grackles around the house. We don't feed them, but they find plenty of bugs in our grass.
It's so hard to know what to do and if you are helping them! On really hot day I put a big dish of water out on my balcony, for our crow population. They have heavy bodies and all those black feathers - you can see them panting when they land on the railing. But am I making them dependent on my dish of water?
That sounds like a great idea, Janet! And in general, having a bird feeder out is wonderful -- just not when there's a bird plague.
And probably especially not when there's a bird plague and so all the birds come to the only bird feeder in town, which was mine.
And then especially *especially* not when all the birds come to my bird feeder, and it's also right next to my apartment and they start watching me and throwing themselves against the window to try to get me to haul out the ol' hot-and-sour soup container to fill up the feeder and they're also having huge fights on my neighbors' porches. Probably at that point <sigh ...> I gotta make myself shut it down. Much as it pains me.
*Your* situation, however, sounds ideal. Maybe eventually, when the bird plague dies down, I can go back to something more sane like that? Fingers crossed.
A gripping read as always. May the birds recover. I'm still seeing jays and grackles around the house. We don't feed them, but they find plenty of bugs in our grass.
Thanks! My understanding is that they're already doing a bit better -- there's a theory that the weird fungus that was making cicadas' butts fall off (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cicadas-fall-prey-drug-producing-fungus-makes-their-butts-fall-180977776/) was poisoning the birds? Fingers crossed on that ... maybe one day I can go back to a more sane level of bird feeding, like is happening at your place naturally.