Plant a Love of Nature in Your Kids
This Earth Day, show kids they can find refuge in the outdoors.
Credit.Enzo Pérès-Labourdette
April 16, 2021Updated 1:32 p.m. ET
Around 1954, when 8-year-old Stanley Temple began tagging along on Audubon Society field trips near Washington, D.C., he befriended a quiet, dark-haired woman who introduced herself as “Miss Carson.” To his delight, she treated him seriously as a fellow bird lover. “Most of the adult naturalists I knew wanted to teach me to identify things,” he said. “She taught me to stop and look.”
“Miss Carson” was Rachel Carson, who would later make history with her book “Silent Spring,” about the dangers of the pesticide DDT. Stanley Temple would become Dr. Temple, a well-known bird conservationist and a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dangers for birds eating from feeders in the winter include contaminated food, injury or disease.
Written By:
Jennifer Knutson | U of M Extension Master Gardener | 4:00 am, Jan. 3, 2021 ×
Photo courtesy Metro Newspaper Service
Dear Master Gardener: I’m worried about the backyard birds getting enough to eat in the winter. Is it a good idea to have bird feeders?
Answer: Winter is a favorite time to take care of our feathered friends. However, there are both positive and negative consequences to feeding them. Some of the risks include: contaminated food or feeders, window collisions, and increased dependence on supplemental food. Many birds have been killed because of disease outbreaks at feeders, so it is extremely important to keep them clean and disinfected. If a feeder is designed where birds can easily contaminate food with their droppings, this also increases the risk of disease.