darryl jones feeding the birds at your table

Everybody knows that we shouldn’t do it.Īnd yet, enormous numbers of people do feed birds in the privacy of their backyards. Virtually everyone is aware that it is not a practice to be encouraged and most of us could recite the all-too familiar reasons why: they can become dependent on the food we provide they can catch terrible diseases it encourages birds that are already common and so on. These sorts of stories are exactly why this country is one of the only places where bird feeding is seriously frowned upon. These might seem strange tales to tell when I am obviously promoting a book about feeding wild birds in Australia. These cases are almost always associated with eating too much mince.’ He related what the vet said: ‘This magpie has a terrible case of metabolic bone disease, a serious condition brought about by a diet with not enough calcium. Because it was so tame, my colleague was able to catch him and take him to a vet. One of the large off-spring was having difficulty walking and one leg looked bent. But last time something was clearly wrong. The other instance was much more commonplace: magpies coming to the feeder of a work colleague to feast on the typical pile of mince. The council has been to visit the bloke but he just says, “They are obviously hungry so I have to feed them!” Please, what can we do?’ ‘The noise, the smell, it’s just unbearable! I can’t even put my clothes on the line anymore. Needless to say, my correspondent was not happy. The photo showed a scene seemingly straight out of TheBirds movie: on every possible surface – fences, clothes line, guttering, roof – as well as on the lawn stood a jostling, impatient throng of crows, currawongs, ibis, brush-turkeys as well as astonishing numbers of magpies and butcherbirds. The scale slowly increased until over a hundred birds were turning up regularly. What started as simply throwing some mince to the local magpie family gradually grew to include other magpies who were soon joined by butcherbirds and kookaburras. Their immediate neighbour had been feeding birds in his backyard for years but lately had expanded his operation considerably. They described a situation that needed to be seen to be believed and so they sent a photograph. I was contacted by someone who had heard me talking about this topic on the radio and thought I might have an opinion. Just this week I was again confronted – twice – with the realities of what can go wrong when we feed wild birds.

Darryl jones feeding the birds at your table