Can bird feeders do more harm than good? It's good for birds to put out feeders in your garden, but those same feeders may also attract predators that eat eggs and nestlings.
In a four-year study featured in Birdwatch Magazine, researchers looked at songbird nests, bird feeders and predators in urban central Ohio. Feeders may attract more predators to an area, but the same food can also satisfy certain predator species so that they are less likely to target nests.
Jennifer Malpass of The Ohio State University and colleagues spent four years monitoring songbird nests and conducting surveys for potential nest predators in seven residential neighborhoods in Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. David Horn, professor of biology at Millikin University, offered insight into the impact of the study.
"Even with over 50 million Americans feeding wild birds and other wildlife around their homes, our scientific understanding of the practice continues to lag," Dr. Horn said. "The study by Malpass, Rodewald and Matthews increases our understanding of how the provision of supplemental food may influence predator abundance and nest survival of two common songbird species."
Dr. Horn, along with Dr. Travis Wilcoxen, assistant professor of biology at Millikin, recently published results of a study they conducted from spring 2011 to spring 2014 that explored how the feeding of wild birds influences the health of individual birds at forested sites in central Illinois.
The study compared three forested sites, where supplemental food was provided, with three forested sites where no supplemental food was provided and observed changes in the individual health of birds. Millikin faculty and students determined that the individual health of birds improved with supplemental feeding, including reduced stress and rapid feather growth.
Click here to read more about the study in an article from Birdwatch Magazine.