>> from the library ofcongress in washington, d.c. >> angel vu: all right. good morning, everyone. thank you so much forcoming and joining us here at the library on thisbeautiful day. my name is angel vu and i'mone of the reference librarians in the business sectionof the science, technology and business division atthe library of congress. along with my colleague,sean bryant,
one of the reference librariansfor the science section, we're pleased to welcome youto today's program titled, "feeding wild birds inamerica, a surprising history." for those who cannot join us today, the library is recording today'spresentation and it will be posted on the library's websitein a couple of months. meantime we'd like toinvite you to visit science and business reference servicesweb pages, as well as our blog, "inside atoms," to keep abreast ofupcoming lectures and other works.
and should you wish toreceive announcements from us, please visit loc.gov and click onthe orange rss icon to sign up. so today's speakers are paulbaicich and margaret barker. they are going to discusstheir book, "feeding wild birds in america: culture,commerce, and conservation." this book is the product of yearsof research along with co-author, carrol l. henderson, which isa minnesota wildlife biologist. this book is going to explorehow the simple practice of bird feeding is linked to theearly bird preservation movement
of the late 1800's and early 1900's, and how in recent decadesit has become a multibillion dollar business. thanks to a eureka movement,and an odd little book on hand taming wild birds, and the cold war agricultureespionage today's standard bird feeding tools such astube feeders, nyjer seeds, and black oil sunflower seedare on the market today. so the authors are going toreveal how this popular hobby
over the decades have helped changeamericans' attitudes towards the natural world. paul baicich's teenage birdingdays in new york city led to a bird oriented career. currently he is a bird andconservation writer and editor, as well as an avidtourism consultant. most recently he has ledbirding trips to cuba. formerly with the american birdingassociation, he is co-author of, "a guide to the nests, eggs, andnestlings of north american birds."
he co-edits the popular monthly"birding community e-bulletin." margaret barker isa tennessee native. she is a writer, speaker, andeducator in the chesapeake bay area. she interned in the washington, d.c. office of the national audubonsociety before joining the cornell lab of ornithology. there she coordinated thecornell lab's project feeder watch and later worked with cornelluniversity's agriculture outreach gardening program.
she is co-author of "the feederwatcher's guide to bird feeding," and the "audubon bird house book." so without further ado i'd like tointroduce you our speakers today, paul baicich and margaret barker. [ applause ] >> margaret barker: well,thank you very much, angel. and we are so glad to be here atthe library of congress and here in the mary pickford theater, wow. and, again, thanks very muchto angel vu and sean bryant
in the science, technology,and business division. it has been so great to work withyou guys the past couple of months. you've taken care of everythingand thank you very much. and thanks also, and i don'tknow if she's here right now, but to rosemary haynes inthe motion picture division. she helped us withour research here. and we'll have more onthat in just a little bit. and thanks to all of you forjoining us for a lunchtime talk. we appreciate it.
well, in the middle of this slidehere you can see our co-author, carrol henderson, surroundedby many, many types of birdfeeders he makes himself. carrol is the head ofthe non-game division for the minnesota departmentof natural resources. and some of you might know hisbooks, his conservation work, his media interviewson npr, and elsewhere. and paul and i are veryproud to be his co-authors. so our talk is about thesurprising history of bird feeding
because when we began ourresearch for a wild bird centers of america pamphlet we weresurprised by what we found. it turns out that the story of birdfeeding is a conservation story and yet it is also one of big business. bird feeding is a lot more thatgiving wild birds yummy treats like peanut butter pinecones you see here. bird feeding today isimportant economically but it also helps peopleconnect to the natural world. it caught on in the late 1800'sand has grown more popular
over the years, evenbecoming a family tradition over generations asin my own family. the reasons to feedwild birds and the ways to feed them have changedconsiderably. >> paul baicich: we're at apoint today where the popularity of feeding birds is pervasive. well, how many people areactually feeding birds or watching birds in their backyard? according to the 2011 nationalsurvey on fishing, hunting,
and wildlife associated recreationfrom the fish and wildlife service, there are about 41.3 millionpeople who engage in some level of watching birds in theirbackyard and feeding them. it's a huge, it is impressive,and it continues to grow. how has it grown? let's compare the figures, if youwould, between the 2006 survey on fishing, hunting, andwildlife associated recreation and the 2011 survey. well, we see here, in terms of theamount of bird food sold in 2006,
it was about 3.35 billion, with ab, in the united states and even after the great recession in 2011it had increased to $4.6 billion. using your seventh grademath you can figure out that that was an increaseof 21.4 percent. similarly, parallel side interms of feeders, bird boxes, and bird baths we went from$790 million worth of commerce in 2006 to 970 million in 2011. a concomitant parallelincrease of about 22.8 percent. social scientists, of course,find this very comforting
when the figures seem to correspond. yes, there are 41.3 millionbackyard bird watchers. and it's significant. what does the backyardbird yard look like? well, the birds favor a birdfriendly environment including native plants particularly in theyard, a broad selection of feeders, nest boxes to supplant missingcavities in dead branches. of course if there's a deadbranch hanging over your home, you don't want it thereso you take it down.
that's decreasing habitatfor birds, by the way. so you can supplement thatby putting up a bird box so those woodpeckers, chickadees, and nuthatches canfind places to nest. they nest in cavities. there's a tendency towardless lawn, less pesticides, and more ground cover whenyou're dealing with this kind of bird friendly backyard. it is important to appreciate
that bird feeding is notnecessary for the birds. bird feeding is not for the birds. it's for us. they can do well withoutour feeding. it is enjoyment for us human beings to bring them closerto us in the backyard. it is supplemental to what theyget in the native situation, in the natural situation. there are only two exceptions:if there is a severe drought
in a dry area, or if there'san increasingly hostile and heavy snow cover and ice wherethe birds can't get to the ground. then you indeed may have someimpact on the local population. but by and large it's forus more than it is for them. so our book, and indeedour talk, will cover decade by decade coverage, mostlythe twentieth century, basically from the 1890'sinto our twenty-first century. we cover the start of birdfeeding in the late 1800's, the bird preservation movement whichfollowed that; the discoveries of
and innovations of thenineteen teens and the 1920's; experimentation during hard timesin the depression and world war ii; growth of postwar americaprosperity: the backyard, the barbeque, the garden,the bird feeding scene; trial and error period of the60's; growth in the 70's and 80's; as well of the development ofa multi-million-dollar industry into the twenty-first century. so we'll start with the late1800's and early 1900's. >> margaret barker: well, today wehave laws protecting wild birds,
importantly the migratory birdtreaty act signed in 1918. but in the late 1800'su.s. birds were in trouble. backyard birds like cardinals couldbe caged and sold as song birds. birds were killed for theirfeathers for women's hats and more. and species of allkinds were on the menu. and they were over hunted. scientists studied birds'economic value and usefulness. bird feeding helped teach peopleabout their bird neighbors. and the case was made thatif you feed good birds,
they'll return the favor andstay around your home and farm and eat weed seedsand harmful insects. professor beal, inthe u.s. department of agriculture's biological surveydivision, documented what birds ate. his "farmer's bulletin number54" was in print for many years. his colleague, waldo mcatee,summed up beal's importance to birds this way: "he didmore than any other man to reveal the basic facts that wereneeded to convince the so-called "practical" men of thevalue of bird protection."
>> paul baicich: asmargaret just indicated, this economic ornithology,as it was called, was connected to agriculture. there were good birdsand there were bad birds. there were birds thatwere advantageous to the farmer and disadvantageous. and it's important to appreciate that primitive attitudetowards science and the economy in comparison to what we do today.
and part of the change occurredduring the bird preservation movement, that birds, in andof themselves, had value. the movement to ban the tradeof birds, and to save them, and to make sure that they werepersistent into the future rotated around the effort to ban thefeather trade in particular. florence merriam bailey is a goodcharacteristic and representative of that woman's movement by andlarge and representative of the era. in 1886, as a student at smithcollege in massachusetts, she recruited hundreds ofher colleagues, young women,
to form an audubon societyto stop the feather trade. by thirteen years later shehad matured to such a level that when she moved to washington,d.c., with her brother, here, washington, d.c., her brotherby the way was c. hart merriam, who headed the u.s. biologicalsurvey, the predecessor to fish and wildlife service. she was able in 1898 to leadclasses here in washington, d.c. about the value ofbirds and the appreciation. and that very same year shehad published "birds of village
and field," which introducedmany, many people to the interest and curiosity of bird life andthe possibility of feeding them. the same time her femalecolleagues such as [inaudible], mabel osgood wright, and oliverthorne miller were doing similar and parallel activities. the bird preservationmovement stopped the slaughter with the 1900 lacey act. they were successful and, by theway, this was a woman's led movement when the women didn't evenhave the right to vote.
in this effort to adorn female garb with feathers the entire birdwas killed, in this case, egrets, for one plume of the hat. the destruction ofcolonies, because these kinds of feathers only appeared whenbirds were in breeding plumage, the entire destructionof colonies and the death of young were a byproduct of that. but it stopped with the passageof the lacey act of 1900. >> margaret barker: so the studyof living birds got a lot easier
with the development ofopera and field glasses, cameras, and handy field guides. a 1907 book published bymassachusetts ornithologist, edward howe forbush,was widely distributed. "useful birds and their protection"included his family's bird feeding practices and reasonsto protect the birds. and also importantly in 1900, the christmas bird countbegan and it continues today. instead of killing as many birdsas possible on christmas day,
which was a tradition,people counted them instead. feeder birds are apart of these counts. and during our research we keptcoming across the name, berlepsch. there were berlepsch foodsticks, berlepsch food houses and feeders of all kinds. so who was this guy? he was hans friar von berlepsch. he lived until 1933. he was a german aristocratknown as "the bird man."
and he managed his family'scenturies-old estate of sebock [phonetic]near essen, germany. and he experimentedwith wild bird feeding. u.s. audubon chapters printeda book on his practices and in this way spread the birdfeeding word among members. >> paul baicich: you cansee here, by the way, an image of one his colleaguespouring melted suet onto evergreen or blocks, how to make suet blocks. and these are molds in this case.
or this interesting kind ofgravity feeder that he had. in any case, berlepsch's ideaswere picked up, as margaret said, by americans, translated,distributed. and one of the people who picked itup was waldo lee mcatee who worked for the department of agriculture. in this, probably the first bulletindone by the united states government on attracting and feeding birds. it's department of agriculturebulletin, number 621, entitled, "how to attract birds innortheastern united states."
and you see the figure, the image of a chickadee comingto somebody's hand. it was done in 1914. and he pointed to certain advantagesto putting, say, an edge or a trim around the tray feeder at yourwindow, or filling up cans, opened at both ends, withstuffed suet and just birdseed, a combination of that, or, inthis case, in the middle here, a hollowed out coconut openedat both ends where suet and birdseed would be stuffed.
mcatee said that the size ofthe hole was very important and it would, in his words, "the size of the hole regulatesthe character of the guests." he worked on even moreelaborate designs: food hoppers, not unlike those used to feeddomestic birds such as chickens. more on coconuts later. mcatee also, in the discussionof this standard feeding tray, which we came across multiple timesfrom the early 1900's into the 20's, would be a flat tray,they all looked the same,
a flat tray with a trim,and a hopper feeder here that was developed out of thedesign for feeding chickens. and sometimes it would have a brace which you could lower during thesummertime, non-feeding time. and they would all have deriguer branch of evergreen which somehow would attractthe birds and keep them happy. he would also design,suggest designs, for fences to keep cats away,as you see in the center here. and those things which weknow commonly now for feeders
and for bird boxes, predator guards to keep squirrels andother predators out. by the nineteen teens, late teens,early 20's, we have the magazine of the era, of the bird watchingera, "bird lore," as it was called, the predecessor to audubon. in 1913 we have here some ofthe first advertising coming up. this is joseph dodson's bird feeder and his very useful banish thesparrow, banish the english sparrow, the house sparrow trap to get ridof them, these invading immigrants
that had come over to the unitedstates and had been released. you'll notice here in this particular imagethe weather vane feeder with these paddles that stick out. they would help rotate the feederwith the wind, like a weather vane, to keep the seed from blowing out. it was a characteristicdesign that appeared at least through the 1940's. you'll also see here, speaking ofhouse sparrows or english sparrows,
saunders' 1917 anti-housesparrow feeder. it was attracted to some birds but it would discourage housesparrows, english sparrows. it would be an upside downsituation with kind of a design that would look like a squaredoff wooden frying pan held upside down with the seed in thislittle bay area and attractive, the birds that could beattracted would be more desirable than the house sparrowsthat couldn't get in there. next we have at the sameperiod a poster, margaret.
>> margaret barker: well, we hadseen this 1917 poster mentioned in "bird lore magazine," andfinally found it, finally, in the national archives. it was printed, no surprise,by the u.s. department of agriculture bureauof biological survey. you can see here there's thatweather vane feeder again and you see that sooften during this period. there's some wonderfulquotes on here, too. "if you feed the birds, they willrepay you by destroying thousands
of insects that harmgardens, trees, and crops." and, this is the one i really like,"begin to feed the birds today. the singing laborer isworthy of his hire." so of the times. this is an image from the 1917edison studios silent film we found here at the library ofcongress and wherever you are, thank you again, rosemary haynes. the film shows boy scoutshelping birds in winter and here is a boy scout with ahomemade coconut feeder once again.
and we're excited toshow this rare short film at the end of our talk today. people in hard times, peoplehad to feed their families but many still could findthe means to feed the birds. this poster is from a feedthe birds campaign launched by the federal cartridgecorporation. and here's is a 1935 "bird lore" ad. you can see berlepschinspired feeders as well as some simple suet feeders.
but note the littletrolley, or pulley feeder, that would fit onto a clothesline. and a special note, anyone who bought these items might beinteracting with roger tory peterson who ran this audubon departmentwhen he was 27 years old and had recently writtenhis now classic field guide. >> paul baicich: then wemove to another popular crop of the early 1900's which was hemp. hemp was a common bird seed.
that is cannabis, mentioned even inthat 1917 poster that we just saw, and it was commonly availableat agricultural feed stores. it was used, hemp was used,to make cloth, paper, rope, today even in some places luggage,and auto parts, believe it or not. this is not to be confused withthe variety of psychoactive hemp but it was very low in thc and it was extremely desirablefor birds, the seed was. of course the very effort ofthe 1937 congressional action against hemp made thismore difficult to get
but it had a revival in world warii when, if you're interested, the department of agriculturein the war effort, pushed the increasedproduction of hemp, particularly for ourunited states navy for making their rope and cordage. it got so great that farmersin particularly kentucky and wisconsin started with about14,000 acres of hemp being grown in 1942 to 146,000 acres in 1943. the vast increase tohelp the war effort.
you can google "hemp forvictory," by the way, under youtube and see the 14 minute film yourself which i reviewed thismorning before my talk. also during the war there wasvery much activity in the terms of rationing and this hadan impact on bird feeding. people were giving theirextra suet, their beef fat, over to the war industry. for what? for munitions. so you were less than patriotic ifyou were feeding suet to the birds
but more patriotic isyou were handing it over to the communitycollections to help the war effort. similarly, sugar with hummingbirdfeeders was hard to come by because sugar was rationed. so there was some controversyand some dismay over using sugar for your coffee, what littleyou had, for yourself or sharing with the birds in yourhummingbird feeder. rationing in world war iihowever, in the positive side if you could look at it in termsof the birds view, was peanuts
and peanut butter wasn't rationed. so peanuts and peanut butterbecame extremely popular, both in the backyard and in thelunchbox on the home front, and, by the way, among c-rations withour boys overseas at the time. it was not rationed and it so becameextremely popular so by the end of the war it was anestablished staple, that is to say peanut butterwas an established staple. and those of us who grew up as post-war baby boomerssuffered the consequences.
next. >> margaret barker: arm and hammerbaking soda bird cards promoted bird feeding and bird study. they were printed from thelate 1800's until 1938. in 1976 the company printeda special birds of prey set and i invite you to go andsee paul's poster over here where he's got the entirecollection in one poster. and it's quite something to see. the cards are verycollectible now, by the way.
and what we're showing here is amale downy woodpecker on a piece of suet that is simplytied to a tree which is the way suet wasoffered quite often in those days. well, duncraft has made birdfeeding products since the 1950's. and gildon's [phonetic] wartimeaviation experience, you can see, inspired this flightdeck window feeder. >> paul baicich: by the1960's we're dealing with seeds now being sold awayfrom the agricultural scene, away from those warehousesand onto grocery stores.
a and p, safeway, foodfair, kroger's, and others started actually havingpackaged birdseed, mixed seed, not necessarily the bestquality but certainly available to the general public to correspondwith the growth of suburbia. this is an ad fromthe november-december "audubon magazine" here, hydefeeders and it was sponsored by the hyde feedercompany of waltham, massachusetts, run by don hyde. you'll notice also in the upperleft-hand corner the characteristic,
flint stone-esque image here of acartoon character watching birds. i also have put inhere the house finch, a bird that was accidentallyreleased in the new york city area, long island in the 1940's andspread throughout the east. and i put this in becauseits spread in the 1960's and 70's was chronicledby feeder watchers, people who started noticing thesestrange birds at their feeder that they hadn't expected before. we also have here the rise inthe 70's and 80's of the first
of the franchise companiesof birdseed specialty stores, namely wild birds unlimited, foundedin 1981, and wild bird centers of america, founded in 1985. the first wild birdsunlimited run by jim carpenter, the second by george petrides whommargaret mentioned at the beginning of the talk who originally helpedus get our project started. and there are many, many,many independent stores around the country todayselling lots of seed and products for the backyard bird scene.
at the same time we have thebird seed preference period of the 70's and 80's. this is a photo of dr. alred guise at the patuxent wildliferesearch center. he published a bird foodpreferred study, a study in 1980. he tested about 15-16different kinds of seeds and it was the first seriousstudy of bird preference, whether they likedoats, wheat, rice, sunflower, milo, millet, whatever.
in the words of george petrides,who found the wild bird centers of america, "before al guise picked up his pen no one knew whatwild birds really liked to eat." he did a great job doing that. >> margaret barker: sincethe 1980's, the late 1980's, project feeder watch has beena joint citizens-science effort of the cornell lab of ornithology and canada's long pointbird observatory. a national science foundation grant
in the early 1990's expanded theproject and developed this poster for quick feeder birdid and tens of thousands of these have been printed. we found in our research thatsunflower, and nyjer seeds, and hummingbird, and tube feedersare relatively new arrivals, each with intriguing back stories. >> paul baicich: firststory is on sunflower seeds. we're going to go througheach of these four stories. this is a picture on theright of dick baldwin,
who worked in the minnesota areafor cargill corporation, looking up and researching seedsand certain plants. he was smart enough to ask forpermission to visit the soviet union in the 1960's to examine whatvasillii stepanovich pustovoit, shown here, was doing at his remarkably successfulbreeding program of an industrial scale at krasnodar. what he was doing there wasmodifying, and developing, and genetically pushing along thesunflower seeds, sunflower seeds
that were highly rich in oil, much richer than any seedsavailable in the united states. in the united states wehad about, oil at the time of the gray stripetraditional seeds, of about 28 percent oil beforedick went to visit pustovoit in the soviet union he heard that itmight be 38 or 40 percent richness. and indeed pustovoit himselfhad been recognized but by two of the soviet union's highestaward, the order of lenin and the red banner of labor.
and pustovoit was anational hero of national and international significance. what he had developed, and dick waslooking at, was this darker oil. when dick was takenthrough the industrial farms at krasnodar he was shocked to see that these small black seedshad about 44 percent oil. and as the tour went on he andhis soviet colleagues were -- actually soviet colleaguesand the translator -- were basically chewing and eatingthis oil rich seed and spitting
out the shells and he was horrified to see this rich stuffbeing used so freely. he asked of course if he couldtake a sample to the united states and was told that it was essentiallya state secret, he could not do so. he was horrified even more. when he went back to his limousine[inaudible] with his translator to go back to the railroadstation to take him back to moscow his translator wrapped upher package of seeds in her napkin and slipped it over to dick.
dick went to the embassy in moscowand shipped it in a diplomatic pouch to fargo, north dakota,and the rest is history. so much for sunflower seeds. i bet you didn't know about that. it's all in the book. >> margaret barker: nyjer seed. nyjer seed is not thistle seed. branding it thistle is marketing. maybe because goldfinches look really good
on purple flowers, i don't know. the spelling was changedto n-y-j-e-r to avoid pronunciationof a racial epithet. alfred martin's 1963 book, "handtaming wild birds at the feeder," described feeding nyjer,a caged bird seed at the time, to hisbackyard finches. and he said, and he said in printthat, "they absolutely loved it." so nyjer was first importedfor wild birds a few years after martin's book.
it comes mostly from ethiopiaand india where it is grown for cooking oil, and thecage, and wild bird markets. it is heat treated for not justweeds when it enters the u.s., and, in fact, up in baltimore thereis a small sterilization plant. maryland ornithologist -- someof you might have known him, john dennis, promoted bird feeding. and he promoted feedingnyjer in his 1975 book, "a complete guide to bird feeding." and he clearly states therethat nyjer is not thistle.
recently many of us haveput up hummingbird feeders because the hummers are back. it has taken decades todevelop hummingbird feeders and sugar water recipeswe use today. early feeding accounts includeone about john james audubon at a louisiana plantation in1821 watching hummingbirds at flowers filled withsweetened wine. an 1899 "bird lore" articledescribes clark university professor, clifton hodge,entertaining his students
by attracting a hummer to flowershe had sprinkled with honey and hidden in his jacket pocket. in the late 1920's, retired banker,ben tucker, and wife, dorothy mae, started feeding hummers ontheir twelve acre property in orange county, california. here's mr. tucker in hisshop, building a bird house. but he built hummer feeders, too. the first ones were prohibitionera happy hour glasses with holes in tin lids just rightfor hummingbirds.
local birders visited the tucker'sfamous outside hummingbird bar to sip cocktails and watch as manyas 200 hummingbirds at a time. an improved tucker design was aglobe shaped chicken water fountain with a wire rail addedfor hummer perching. this was a popular designfor a while created in 1928 by the husband of edith webster. he used a glass mixingtube from his lab at mit an attachedopen spouts on the end. edith tasted all the flowers inher new hampshire yard to come
up with a one part sugarto two parts water recipe. today's standard mix is onepart sugar to four parts water which is more like nectar flower. and today there are many new and different hummingbirdfeeder designs. here's droll yankees' classic littleflyer or flying saucer on the left and perky pets' unique pinchedwaist design on the right. speaking of droll yankees. >> paul baicich: yes.
we go next to tube feeders. this is a picture from the late1980's of a fellow by the name of peter kilham who foundedthe company, droll yankees. peter was an inventor, an industrialdesigner, and nature enthusiast. he had innovationswhich later became the, this feeder, the a6f feeder. but he had also worked on teachingart work, engaging custom design, creating furniture,high end furniture. he had a number ofindustrial machines
and received multiple patents. he was a kind of do-it-all fellow. his little company, launchedin 1960, droll yankees, was based at his wharfsituated workshop. and it basically had sold records. some of you may rememberthose round objects, records. they were novelty records. it included yankeestorytelling and the recordings of birds, frogs, and tugboats.
one afternoon after workingwith a colleague of his at the rhode islandschool of design, he was helping his colleague dosome elaborate modern art display of structure. i think it was in a lobby at risd. there was leftover plastic tubing. of course he was told by hiscolleague who was in charge of the project, "peter,just go dispose of these. get rid of them.
it's extra." having grown up in the depression hewasn't going to throw anything away so he brought it back to his shop. he looked at it for about 20minutes, scratched his head, figured, "if i put a cap on thetop, a cap on the bottom of a foot and a half length, drill some holes,put in some dowels, hand it up, i can probably stuffsome bird seed in it and it would become a bird feeder." indeed, voila, 1968-69we have the a6f.
here's the patent, 1969 patent forthe feeder that we see everywhere. it's probably the mostcommon feeder. and it is relatively new interms of long term history. we'll go to, very quickly, thecollective wisdom and experience of 120 years, the five major lessons that have been necessarilyaccumulated. the story of bird feedingreduced down to a bouillon cube, or at least five bouillon cubes. bird feeding in four seasons;providing water in four seasons;
offering a variety of food;providing protection from predators; and clean feeders andground areas regularly. we show old fashioned stuff on theleft and the new stuff on the right. first, in terms of five ways offeeding success, all four seasons. when we began this narrative it wasmainly feeding in the wintertime and it still is mainlyfeeding in the wintertime. but, you know, in florida, intexas, and southern california, and southeast arizona wintertimeisn't as tough as it is up here for some reason and they can feedall year and they do feed all year.
and they weren't justlimited to wintertime feeding, indeed you'll notice thatthe feeding has changed from the old hopper feeder with therequisite trim and evergreen here, shown from the nineteen teen's,to the feeder here in summertime with multiple different kinds of food including fruitsand different levels. >> margaret barker: water of courseis essential for backyard birds and it's fun to watchthem drink and bathe. birdbaths go back as far asthe ancient greeks and romans.
water attracts morethan feeder species. you might find bathingwarblers, too, for example, especially this time of year. moving water especiallybrings in the birds. >> paul baicich: the next way is toprovide protection from predators, in this case -- oh, i'm sorry-- the next case is -- . >> margaret barker:carrol's suggested backyard. this was developed by carrolhenderson, our co-author. you can see a black andwhite image of a backyard
from about the 1920's on the left. and on the right is carrolhenderson's backyard. he says if you can do it andyou want to get a lot of birds, use a total of twelve to fifteenfeeders of many different types in groups of three to four eachand offer a wide range of foods from different kinds ofseeds to suet, grape jelly, apple and orange slices,meal worms, and sugar water. >> paul biacich: next indeed is toprovide protection from predators, in this case, in one case, cats.
the picture on the left shows tabby. this is edward howe forbush'sexperiment of putting a bird that tabby killed, a warbler, ayellow warbler i believe it was, around the neck of poor tabbyto teach it a lesson and to keep that dead, stinking bird aroundtabby's neck for days, if not weeks. needless to say, it didn't work. but forbush, in 1960, wrote theclassic piece, "the domestic cat: bird killer, mouser, anddestroyer of wildlife. means of utilizingand controlling it."
well, there's decentways to control it. one method is to maintain aten foot clearance around sites that are hiding place free interms of a ten foot clearance around your bird feeders. the opposite is to encirclethe site with wire fencing. that keeps the bird feederfrom becoming a cat feeder. similarly, the next caseis to provide protection from predators usinggood brush piles, offering the birds quickescapes from sky borne perils,
either cooper's hawks or sharp-shinned hawksvisiting the feeders. birds do take readilyto these brush piles. and if you keep the brush piles,again, away from the feeders, about ten feet away,it also keeps them from being hiding places for cats. >> margaret barker: the latest birdfeeder designs are easy to clean and this is good news becausepeople who have been feeding birds for a while know that some ofthose feeders were very hard
to get really, really clean. cleaning and disinfecting feeders and bird baths routinelyis a best practice. and remember to change out yourhummingbird sugar water nectar every couple of days. every few days will do. bird feeding is importanttoday for many reasons. it's a good business. it's educational and entertaining.
and it connects us to nature. over decades the hobby has takensurprising twists and turns. carrol henderson's bird feeding tipsbuild on the past to create safe and successful bird feedingin the twenty-first century. and we are going to leave youwith what we first sought here at the library of congress,the now digitized silent film, "caring for the birds in winter." and we are going to find -- i might need dappen's [assumedspelling] help again --
that start button. there we go. all right. and this was made byedison's studios. we saw reference toit, found it here. made by edison's studios,produced by howard cleaves who was at the natural history museumthere in staten island. and it's mostly about boy scouts, boy scouts caring forthe birds in winter.
>> paul baicich: you will noticethe almost military doughboy look of our world war i of these boyscouts in the winter putting in a pole, and putting afeeder on top with the trim. notice the standard trim. >> margaret barker:nice sheltered feeder. now keep your eyes on the kidswho are eating the peanuts. [ laughter ] >> paul baicich: and thisis a string of peanuts which isn't a common practicein the united states anymore.
it's very common in greatbritain to have string of peanuts for the birds. and here they wrapped them around. >> margaret barker: we thinkthat's a good bird feeder idea. so putting seed on theplatform feeder there. >> paul baicich: guestsarrive for dinner. okay. oh, there are that many. >> margaret barker:they're thinking about it. oh, there's one.
>> paul baicich: maybe juncos there. i can't -- it's hard to tell. >> margaret barker: yeah. >> paul baicich: ah. and here comes a chickadee. >> margaret barker:always the first. >> paul baicich: yeah. black capped chickadeeon the peanuts. there's some white breastednuthatch i believe coming in.
>> margaret barker: mm-hmm. >> paul baicich: upsidedown as it's wont to do. almost woodpecker likebut upside down. >> margaret barker: thecamera liked this bird. and this is interesting tosee how this was put up. >> paul baicich: [inaudible] likei said, there's the trim and -- . >> paul baicich: another chickadee. >> paul baicich: wish i couldtell what seed they were using. >> paul baicich: it's unclear.
>> margaret barker: hard to see. >> paul baicich: there doesn'tseem to be any sunflower in there. probably some hemp, folks. coconut, here they're making, here they're sawing thecoconut at both ends. and they're grindingup the beef fat. >> margaret barker:looks like a hard job. >> paul baicich: at leastthey're not tasting it. then they're goingto mix it with seed.
>> margaret barker:suet and ground peanuts. >> paul baicich: theymix, stuffing it there. and hanging it up in the snow. >> margaret barker: yes. this is the image weused in our book. ta-da. >> paul baicich: and it'sa red breasted nuthatch. >> paul baicich: coming. the size of the hull regulatesthe quality of the guest.
and for some reason they tossedin this: people throwing in -- . >> margaret barker: doesn't fit in. maybe it's the benefactors. >> paul baicich: theymade this all possible. and -- . this was very common toestablish bird feeding stations, community stations and runby communities and boy scouts in the woods or inthe village squares, particularly in the new england.
we guess that this may havebeen from upstate new york. >> margaret barker: now they'regoing to create a snow feeder. keep your eyes open for some boyswho fight with swords in here. >> paul baicich: they'repacking down the snow so the seed doesn'tdisappear into the -- . and here we come -- . >> margaret barker: juncos. >> paul baicich: more juncos, yep. >> margaret barker: andthis is close to the end.
juncos look fed and thefilm just kind of ends. [laughs]. >> paul baicich: as does our talk. thank you very much. >> angel vu: thank you somuch, margaret and paul. that was fascinating. and now we're going to openthe floor up for any questions. >> margaret barker: great. >> i vaguely recall, maybe 30years ago, reading that the spread
of feeding had some effect on,for example, northern cardinals, the winter range as faras the north [inaudible]. are there other dramaticeffects like that, the distribution of animals? >> paul baicich: well,probably feeder-wise, it's probably not dependenton but it probably helps. i would include -- cardinalswould be among the first which would have been startingover a hundred years ago when they started moving north.
but other southern birds that havemoved north and have been helped by feeders have been tuftedtitmouse, red bellied woodpecker, and probably carolina wren in sofar as that they come to suet. and the carolina wrensare an example of blizzard threatened birds. in new england whenit's a tough, tough, tough winter the carolinawrens, having just reached, "just" reached new englandmaybe in the 1980's and 90's, they're hammered back whenin very difficult winters
and it may take a few years orhalf a decade for them to recover. so in that case, you know, afeeding station might be important for your carolina wrens ifyou live in vermont or maine. but otherwise i don't think there'smuch that we can attribute in terms of northern spreadhaving to do with feeders. i think there is a western spread when we're dealingwith house finches. and i think house fincheshave really been accelerated and accommodated by feedingstations as they've moved west.
margaret, do you haveanything to add there? >> margaret barker: sounds good. i was going to mention carolinawren as really a dramatic example. anyone else? yes. >> i was amused to see "feedthe birds now" had been produced by the national cartridge. i mean, i always thinkof cartridges and guns. so i wondered if indeed theywere promoting feeding the birds
so they could shootthe birds [inaudible]. federal cartridge corporationwas for many, many years extremelyactive in conservation, perhaps mainly due towardtheir rural base, their owners, the family that owned the company and that still ownsthe company i believe. i'd have to ask carrol that. and their interest in game birds, mainly that game birdsbe they grouse, or quail,
or pheasant would survivethrough the winter if you fed. they had a whole seriesof these psa's, public service announcements,as ads. they even had them, wisely enoughand this was very admirable, they had them not to shoot thehawks that visit your chicken yard which was quite remarkable. indeed the arms and ammocompanies in 1911 were instrumental in forming the wildlife managementinstitute which was deeply committed and has been deeply committed toconservation from that avenue.
and so it's very interesting. it's a good question. >> margaret barker: and therewas community bird feeding going on so groups of people wouldget together and go out and feed the birds,especially in heavy snows. >> paul baicich: and a lot of thatduring the depression was scratch, not necessarily quality seeds, butseed that was swept up at the mill, on the floor, and put into bags,and first given away to farmers and community people to spread
at community feedersor in their backyards. later on they said, "hey, you know,we could start charging ten cents or a nickel a bag forthese big bags." and that's what theydid and that's part of the transition intothis bird feeding. >> is there anything you can do forground cover to ensure that worms and other insects areavailable [inaudible]. we have a lot of insectivorousbirds around right now of course and the best thing that peoplecan do is to plant for birds.
and even if you just have, youknow, some food plants, for example, when i go out of town i don'tworry about my hummingbirds because i have coral honeysuckle andthat's there for the hummingbirds. and the health of insectsis going to increase and therefore be available to birdsif you keep nice native plants around and don't use pesticides. >> paul baicich: i highlyrecommend doug tallamy's book, "bringing nature home." it's a fabulous book on theconnection between native plants
and native insects, andconcomitantly, connected to birds. i will tell you privately i have aphobia against insects but i read and thoroughly enjoyed the book. and it's an extremely important,an extremely important book. doug tallamy, "bringingnature home." it's about the backyard. >> margaret barker: but onethought is to think of a plant as a kind of bird feeder. >> paul baicich: indeed.
and cover is good, is important,not only in spring and summer when it's blossoming, andwhen it's full of insects and worms underneath, but alsoin terms of wintertime to serve as literally cover forbirds, protection from wind, snow, and predators, too. any other questionsbefore we -- yes, go ahead. >> there was, you showeda device meant to discourage english sparrows. are the same little brownsparrows that we have everywhere?
the english sparrows are now calledhouse sparrows, were introduced to brooklyn, new york, 1850, 1852,i think two or three releases. and it was thought thatthey would eat gypsy moths and gypsy moth worms. it didn't work. they spread all over the country. they became bullies to otherbirds and became undesirable. this was a device not to discourage,you wisely used the word, or politically correct touse the word discourage.
this was a device to capture soyou could dispose of these birds. curiously they have beendeclining over the last, house sparrows have been decliningover the last 30, 40 years. and that's particularly becauseof the decline of the horse. in urban areas, in citieshouse sparrows flourished because of spilled grain andfeeding horses, oats in particular. also they would recycle themanure that wasn't fully, necessarily digested bythe horse on city streets. house sparrows would do very well.
they don't do that well now. they may be in some urban areasincluding washington, d.c., and maybe your backyard butthey are highly reduced. margaret, did you getthe results from -- ? >> margaret barker: alsoin europe they're declining and it's remarkable because a lot ofpeople who put up birdhouses don't like house sparrows a lot. they can be very aggressive,especially toward bluebirds. and, but you can go online andsee people in england weeping
about the decline inhouse sparrow populations. house sparrows are not aprotected bird in this country. they're not protected underthe migratory bird treaty act. >> paul baicich: they're not native. they're not native just likestarlings are not native birds. they're not protected. so they are disposed of anddispatched accordingly many places. looks like we've run out of time. it's been a delight to be withyou and an honor to be here.
thank you. >> margaret barker: very much. >> this has been a presentationof the library of congress. visit us at loc.gov.