“Leave the loaf at home – not at the duck pond, please.” - Bill Oddie
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The same also goes for other birds such as crows, etc., that some people, for whatever misguided reason, like to feed in parks.
First of all it is against the law in Britain to feed corvids, that is to say members of the crow family, and those include crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs and nutcrackers. In the same way as it is illegal to feed the gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis).
Secondly, as far as the birds are concerned, despite the fact that they are scavengers, in the case of the crow family, and will raid park litter bins and such, bread is absolutely no good for them, and less so even for ducks, geese and other wild birds.
The fact, as Bill Oddie explains, that white bread especially has no nutritional value for wild birds, including ducks, geese and swans (and other wild animals) should, I am sure also get give us food for thought. It is also thus of no value to us humans.
While it may be great fun for children to go to the pond or the river to feed the wild ducks, geese, swans and other aquatic birds, and the birds indeed do gobble up the stuff as if there be no tomorrow, it is not good for the birds at all to be feed bread.
Aquatic birds find enough food in the water and the water's edge in the form of bugs and vegetation, both in the water and out, and do not need to be fed, and definitely NOT with bread of whatever color.
Other wild birds, especially our garden birds, do benefit from being fed by us as often, due to how we “garden” nowadays with too much decking and hard surfacing and hard landscaping, their natural food sources are in short supply. But here also bread is a NO, NO.
get proper bird feed if you wish to feed our feathered friends in the garden and use the appropriate feeders to keep predators and squirrels away. A 'protected' bird tables will do but much better are, generally, hanging feeders. And only use, as said, the appropriate feed for the wild birds. DO NOT give them bread or tables scraps.
While table scraps and vegetable trimmings (and even the occasionally home baked bits of bread) are fine for chickens they are not for wild birds.
So, leave the loaf at home...
© 2012
