The Need and Value of Attracting Birds

Winter Protection

The winter is a season, when, from the birds' standpoint, assistance in obtaining food is particularly welcome. When heavy snows lie on the ground, much of the supply of the seed-eating birds is hidden; and when the tree-trunks are covered with ice, insect-eating birds find it difficult to break through this coating, to secure insects and their eggs in the bark beneath. Under ordinary conditions our birds can withstand quite cold weather if they are well supplied with food ; but this is digested so quickly that birds require a large amount and frequent access to it. Many birds perish from exposure to severe storms and weather, as well as from starvation, so that shelter as well as food is necessary to protect the winter birds.

Winter Mortality among Birds

In order to emphasize the need of furnishing food and shelter for the winter birds as a practical means of protecting them from the inclemencies of the elements, a few statistics are given showing the effect of the winter of 1903 and 1904 upon the birds. This summary is taken from a report by Edward Howe Forbush, based upon observations of seventy-five correspondents in Massachusetts, and fifteen from neighboring states. While this winter was an unusually severe one, yet these reports suggest the dangers to which birds are exposed during average winters, as well as the extreme perils of an occasional severe one.

During the first half of the winter birds were present in about their usual numbers, but as the severity of the weather increased the number of birds began to decrease, till about the end of the winter a very noticeable mortality was universally reported, and many birds were found dying of cold and hunger ; and it was the opinion of those best fitted to judge that most of the birds which usually wintered there were either starved or frozen.

Among the greatest sufferers were the bob-white, partridge, meadowlark, and flicker. In some localities the bob-white was apparently entirely exterminated, Mr. Forbush estimating that it had been reduced at least ninety-five per cent.