Why Winter Bird Feeding Contributes to Improved Harvests? 0 18

Experienced gardener and agronomist Alexander KHOROBROVETS explains:

Your neighbor is absolutely right. Insect-eating birds, especially tits, are true helpers for the garden. According to research, one family of tits can protect up to 40 medium-aged fruit trees from the most dangerous pests. During the daylight hours, a pair of tits feeds their hungry chicks more than 350 times.

Other small birds, such as nuthatches, wagtails, redstarts, and sparrows, are equally important as they also feed their chicks with insects. For example, a family of starlings brings about 8000 May beetles, their larvae, and other large insects during the chick-rearing period. This amount of food is enough to fill three birdhouses to the brim. Many insect-eating birds, including tits, nuthatches, and woodpeckers, stay to winter in their usual habitats.

To feed the feathered friends, you can set up feeders in the form of shelves or boxes with low edges, as well as structures from which the feed spills out as it is eaten (for example, an inverted bottle filled with feed). Feeders can be made from cardboard or milk cartons. Tits and nuthatches eagerly eat sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds (if you harvested them in the summer), bones with meat scraps, and unsalted lard. Other birds happily peck at grain waste, bread crumbs, dried berries, and weed seeds.