Attracting birds to your back yard is a fantastic and easy way to find new birds and allows you a great opportunity to practice your bird identification skills. As a long time bird watcher, I am all for that.

One of the easiest ways to attract wild birds is to offer them food.
However, just because a particular food attracts birds, it may not necessarily be healthy for the birds. Wild birds can be a lot like humans when it comes to eating. We share the same tendency for junk foods and foods that are filling but not very nutritious. White bread comes to mind immediately. It is not a food that is beneficial to birds.

My grandparents kept chickens. Back in the 40s they were not called free range chickens, but Grandmas chickens were exactly thatroaming free around the yard.

Grandma threw her table scraps out to her free range chickens, including a lot of left-over stale bread and bread crusts. Eventually Grandmas chickens became Sunday dinner, and I still remember how stringy and tough the birds were!

I dont suppose feeding her scrawny chickens too much bread can carry all the blame, but none-the-less, all those empty calories in white bread certainly did not help them.

Some things never change. Today, I still see or hear of folks feeding white bread to their backyard wild birds. I cringe and have often taken on the task of educating some of my neighbors about nutritious bird feeding. And be forewarned, I know from experience you need to use a lot of diplomacy and tact if you decide to educate your neighbor.

OKAY, so once in a while it wont hurt the birds to throw out some junk food, but, a bellyful of white bread will not give them the energy they need to make it through a cold winter night. Wild birds need plenty of fat and protein to keep their metabolism going strong. In fact, I read somewhere that a plain old cake donut is better for birds than white breadmore fat content.

Another side to the problem of throwing out bread and scraps to the backyard birds is LEFTOVERS. Food spoils much more quickly than birdseed. Warm weather or rain on people food is not good. Aside from that, allowing spoiled food to lay around in your yard is not a pretty sight and even worse, it is not good for the cardinals, song sparrows and doves that come to your back yard to feed. Granted, bread will attract birds, and get them in close for you to practice your bird identification skillsbut think about it!

When you have given it some thought, perhaps the next you feel like giving your backyard birds a treat, you can just throw out a little extra bird seed. Or, if you are so inclined, check out your local feed supply store and you will find many types of bird feed that are sold as special treats.

In my neck of the woods winter means cold temperatures and often a ground cover of snow, or several inches of snow. I always look forward to the season change because the winter weather also brings a greater variety of wild birds to my back yard feeding stations and that gives me a chance to work on bird identification from the comfort of my warm kitchen.

Regardless of where you live, whether you have a snow season or not, it is well to be prepared for the day an unfamiliar or possibly even and extraordinary bird appears at your feeders. At my house being prepared means keeping a pair of binoculars and a field guide close at hand because when that new bird shows up, I want to be ready to jump right in and identifying that bird — what a thrill that can be! I suspect that to a bird watcher, there is no greater delight than identifying a new bird in your own back yard.

Interested in learning more about birds and easy bird identification, visit
http://www.easybirdidentification.com

Marjie Gemmell was a naturalist for 21 years teaching bird identification classes to thousands of students and adults. She has been an avid birdwatcher for 40 years and is a world class birder, having observed over 4,000 species of birds.

Outside the classroom, Marjie shared her knowledge of birds and her bird watching skills leading bird walks, night hikes and birding tours.

Marjie has followed her avid quest to see and identify birds to nearly all the continents of the world, and in the process has seen 4,000 bird species.

Her greatest satisfaction comes from sharing her birding knowledge with others.