Feeding birds in the summer.

Feeding wild birds during the summer offers numerous advantages for both the birds and the people who engage in this activity. While natural food sources are generally more abundant in the warmer months, supplemental feeding still provides important benefits. Here’s why feeding wild birds in the summer is advantageous:

1. Supporting Breeding and Nesting Birds

• High Nutritional Demands: During the breeding season, adult birds need extra energy to care for their young. Many birds are feeding their chicks, which requires high-protein foods like insects or mealworms. Offering mealworms, sunflower seeds, or suet can help meet these nutritional demands.
• Feeding Growing Chicks: Parents often struggle to find enough food for their rapidly growing chicks. Providing easy access to nutritious food can relieve some of this pressure, ensuring that young birds grow healthy and strong.
• Reducing Stress on Adults: Adult birds expend a lot of energy gathering food for their chicks, which can sometimes result in malnutrition or exhaustion. Supplementary feeding helps adult birds maintain their strength, improving their ability to raise offspring.

2. Molting Season

• Increased Protein Needs: Many birds molt during the summer, replacing their old, worn-out feathers with new ones. Molting requires a significant amount of protein. Offering protein-rich foods like mealworms, suet, and peanuts can help birds complete this process more quickly and with less stress.
• Supporting Feather Growth: Healthy feathers are essential for flight, insulation, and attracting mates. The extra nutrition from summer feeding helps ensure birds grow strong, vibrant feathers during this critical time.

3. Providing Consistent Food Sources

• Variability in Natural Food: While natural food is generally more available in summer, local food sources can still be unpredictable. Droughts, heatwaves, or habitat destruction can reduce the availability of insects, seeds, or berries. Feeding wild birds ensures they have a reliable food supply, regardless of changes in their environment.
• Supporting Urban Birds: In urban or suburban areas where natural food may be scarce due to development, offering supplementary food during the summer provides birds with easy access to nutrition, helping maintain local bird populations.

4. Attracting a Variety of Bird Species

• Increased Bird Diversity: Summer is a time when many migratory birds return to the area, increasing bird diversity. Offering food attracts a wider range of species, including summer visitors like warblers, swallows, and hummingbirds. This provides birdwatchers with opportunities to observe more species than during other seasons.
• Encouraging Long-Term Habits: Feeding birds in the summer encourages them to become familiar with your feeding stations. This increases the chances that they’ll continue to visit during autumn and winter when natural food becomes scarcer.

5. Encouraging Natural Pest Control

• Attracting Insect-Eating Birds: Birds such as swallows, swifts, and warblers consume large quantities of insects during the summer. By feeding these birds, you encourage them to spend more time in your garden, where they can help naturally control insect populations like mosquitoes, caterpillars, and aphids.
• Minimizing Garden Pests: Birds that eat insects help protect plants and crops by reducing pest numbers, creating a healthier garden environment without the need for chemical pesticides.

6. Helping Migratory Birds

• Fueling Migration: Some bird species begin their southward migration toward the end of summer. Offering high-energy foods like seeds, nuts, and mealworms helps these migratory birds build up the energy reserves they need to travel long distances.
• Supporting Long-Distance Migrants: Migratory birds often need to stop and refuel at feeding stations during their journey. By providing food, you can help these birds prepare for the next leg of their migration.

8. Minimizing Competition

• Reducing Intra-Species Competition: Providing ample food helps reduce competition between bird species, especially when natural food sources are limited or concentrated in specific areas. Offering multiple feeders with a variety of foods spreads out the feeding opportunities and reduces conflict between birds.
• Helping Juvenile Birds: Young birds that have recently fledged (left the nest) are often inexperienced at finding food. Supplementary feeding can give these inexperienced juveniles an easier time finding nourishment during their early days of independence.