Predation Risk and Bird Feeders

[@Hayley-sl9lm]

I am so torn about crows - they're one of the few species that don't really need our help I guess, but a crow family has nested this year in a cedar tree near my house and I love them, they have so much personality and the way they take care of their family is so adorable; the ones I see are still feeding their seemingly adult children. When you see wildlife you just want to help them - but alternatively I don't want turn into one of those annoying people who feed raccoons, you know, and throw their reproductive fecundity all off, and end up attracting rats? We have to be really mindful about injecting things into the foodweb.

[@ABirdingNaturalist]

@@Hayley-sl9lm being mindful is definitely a good tendency. I suspect that if you have one crow family visiting your yard that you are unlikely to throw off the balance too much. Maybe reconsider if the population gets larger.

[@Hayley-sl9lm]

@@ABirdingNaturalist True that's a good point. Right now I don't even have a feeder yet, I've just been putting out water for them during heat waves because my area gets a crazy urban heat island effect. All five of them come in the morning to drink and they bring their food to it actually (like food they've foraged) and get it wet before feeding it to their fledged kiddos. It's pretty fun to watch them! We had an epically bad winter storm this past January and I did put some bird seed out then... My philosophy is kind of to try and buffer the extremes of their habitat. I do plant a lot of native plants and leave the seed heads up.

[@ABirdingNaturalist]

@@Hayley-sl9lm Buffering against extremes seems like a really good philosophy to me! And putting out water is just about always a good idea (unless there is some water-transmissible disease going around)! I think it is really interesting that the birds moisten some of the food they find before feeding it to their offspring. That is a cool behavior to get to see! Thanks for sharing it.