WHO REALLY BENEFITS FROM FEEDING GARDEN BIRDS?
Charles and Julia Botha
Charles and Julia Botha are the authors of Bring Nature Back to your Garden and Bring Butterflies Back to your Garden. Both their books have won book prizes from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. With their kind permission, we reproduce an article written and adapted by them for Environment from one by the same authors entitled Food for thought; who benefits from feeding birds? Africa Birds & Birding, 2009, 14 (3) 36-41.
The article has appeared in our Newsletter in three parts. Here is the third and final part.
For many years we have encouraged gardeners to plant indigenous through our books and gardening articles. In our own garden, with not only indigenous but locally indigenous plants, we have no need to feed birds. They are there without being enticed by human bribes! To us it is just so much more rewarding to see them foraging naturally in the garden rather than eating at zoo-like feeding trays. We wouldn’t dream of visiting “reserves” where lions and other animals are fed for the sake of amusing tourists, so why would we emulate that with birds in our own garden?
Once we stopped artificial feeding, the numbers of doves and other very common birds decreased but they did not disappear. However, as many more species moved in it became a matter of quality rather than quantity. This is consistent with studies which have shown that species richness is greater in less urbanized areas. We must be among the minority of gardeners in the country who believe that all wild animals, including birds, should be provided only with natural food sources in gardens.
Nothing beats our wild figs (Ficus species) to draw in the fruit-eaters
Insects are, in fact, essential for most garden birds and their fledglings, including the fruit- and nectar-eaters. While indigenous vegetation is optimal in providing for garden wildlife, in general local plants will not be destroyed by indigenous insects. Although our original intention was to plant for the birds, an unexpected benefit was the arrival of a wide variety of butterflies that use the appropriate vegetation as larval food. This not only gives watching garden wildlife another dimension, but also creates even more bird buffets. It also gave us the initial building blocks for our book Bring Butterflies Back to your Garden, which could easily have been named Bring Birds Back to your Garden, because where butterflies and their larvae go birds will soon follow.
Because we have not used any poisons whatsoever for several decades, not even the so-called environmentally-friendly ones, we have an abundance of predatory insects. These, together with the birds, ensure that we have no problem with the usual garden pests such as aphids, ants, cutworms, crickets and snails. Some imported pests, like mealy bugs, are promptly removed by hand, but absolutely no indigenous creature is ever destroyed. On the contrary, the arrival of every new little beastie is welcomed with joyful admiration and the clicking of a camera. Planting for the insects is a totally different mindset to fighting nature by trying to eliminate creatures perceived to be harmful to plants. Seeing birds feeding on “our” garden insects creates an amazing sense of achievement, superior to any pleasure that could be obtained from watching birds at artificial foods sources. But then, maybe ours is not a garden after all, but rather South Africa’s smallest nature reserve!
The authors of this article have provided an extensive list of further reading. If you would like to have the list, please email Barbara on b.attwell@mweb.co.za.