Yes, to come back to a theme of the other day, to whose benefit is all this hanging out of birdfeeders full of monkey-nuts and the slabs of fat stuck in the fork of branches and all the other scraps, really organised? It is, indeed a kindly deed, but if the good of the birds alone was the consideration, the food would be tucked away where they could eat it in comfort, and nesting boxes would, likewise, be hidden in the ivy or the scrub where it would not be visible. For gardeners all owe a great debt to birds. One writer claims that a tit eats its own weight in insects every day, and to feed its young, it brings back caterpillars or other creatures between 30 and 50 times a day. Scientists, claim an article in Le Chasseur Francais, have even calculated that 12,500 insects are needed to raise a brood. The majority of these insects are leaf eating caterpillars and greenfly. In a year, claims the same source, a pair of tits and their brood would eat 30kg of caterpillars. And then, of course, there are the rodents which owls and other birds of prey demolish. (Do owls get any of the dainties put out for the other birds?)
One man makes the point that in times of specially hard weather, food for the birds should be scattered around your garden, not displayed all together, he says. Otherwise the more aggressive among them will dominate your main feeding place or places and the less strong or less active will be pushed out of the way. It's understandable that people who feed birds should, themselves, get some satisfaction from their good deed and so hang their devices near windows, yet in so going he fears that birds which don't do much in the way of caterpillar and insect eradication (he instances sparrows), may be getting a good share of your kindly dispensed food.
Gilbert White (1720-1793) in the Natural History of Selborne (in southern England) was observant of bird's winter endeavours at feeding. He writes of the many species which, in winter subsist on insects in their aurelia or cocoon state. He is unsentimental. Hedgesparrows frequent "sinks and gutters" in hard weather where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings, and in mild weather they procure worms "which are stirring every month of the year, as anyone may see that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass plot on any mild winter's night." Tits pull straws from the caves of thatched houses to get at flies that, White says, are concealed there. The blue tit hunts butchers' shops and he tells of seeing, as a boy, 20 in a morning caught with snap-trap mousetraps baited with tallow or suet. Y