My Thoughts On Project Feederwatch

In the past we’ve participated in Project Feederwatch a couple of times. This is a program in which you watch for birds and report to the scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology what you see, in a specific timeframe (such as 2-3 days).

Dana of Principled Discovery blogs more about this program, here. I found this post through the 41st Carnival of Homeschooling.

This is a perfect example of a family activity that is a great learning experience. Children and parents participate together in a hands on activity that has real meaning and the information they gather is helpful to people in the real world.

I was surprised to see that they now charge a $15 fee to participate in Project Feederwatch. In the past it was a volunteer effort and participants were just helpers. Based on the information they are giving out with the fee (several bird identification tools) I wonder if they worried that some people were incorrectly identifying birds, thereby causing more of a problem. I would not doubt that.

The reason we haven’t done this in a few years is that we had so many stray feral cats in our neighborhood (even after doing trap/neuter/release aka “TNR”), that when I’d feed the birds it was actually a little sick as it was doing nothing but drawing prey for the cats to eat. It was funny but there would not be a cat in sight until the birds came to the feeder then there they were, hunting.

The last time I fed the birds I was using a special feeder supposedly for bluebirds, it was a glass box and special food was placed inside that other critters could not access as the opening was very small. A poor chickadee was in it and two cats were sitting on this glass box trying to get the bird and the frightened bird was thrashing back and forth in a panic trying to get out. It was a horrid scene and as soon as I saw it I ran outside to shoo the cats away. The bird was still freaking out and I had to throw a towel over it to calm down the bird enough so it could find its way back out the slim and small opening. I immediately removed the feeder from the post and that was that.

The other reason that I don’t feed the birds is that the wild turkeys attack any feeder with sunflower seed in it. They visit our yard early in the morning, and they fly into the tree and attack the feeder until it falls down, opens and spills. They continue to maneuver the feeder to get every single seed out and then they eat every single seed. The reason that I know this was happening was that I saw this with my very eyes. Previously I wondered if the robber was a raccoon (in the night) or even deer. So I give up.

So I stopped feeding the wild birds (and I miss seeing them).

Well we used to have sixteen feral cats in the colony and now we are down to two, due to coyote attacks, getting hit by cars and possibly also illness. (Attempts to get others to take these cats out of this neighborhood failed but that is another very long story.) Perhaps some time in the future we can get back to feeding the wild birds and then we can participate in this again!

So if you want to participate in Project Feederwatch, go read the information. Have fun.

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