10 Reasons To Be a Backyard Bird Feeder

I'm a lazy bird watcher. I don't have a lot of patience with going out into the field and hoping to see interesting birds there. That's why I have several bird feeders set up in my back yard.

Successful bird feeding is a lot trickier than it looks, I've found.

What foods, for instance, attract what kinds of birds? How do I keep squirrels and raccoons from eating it all and/or destroying the feeders? Questions like that abound.

That's one reason why I just bought Sally Roth's The Backyard Bird Lover's Ultimate How-To Guide.

(Another reason is that it was 40% off at Border's, which is jettisoning inventory before it goes out of business forever.)

Anyway, here are 10 reasons why I suggest becoming a bigtime backyard bird feeder:

1. You'll have plenty of company. According to Roth, one out of every four adult Americans — 46 million of us — watches birds in his or her backyard.
   
   
2. Birds are the living descendants of dinosaurs. How cool is that!
   
   
3. If you watch the birds "up close and personal" for several minutes through binoculars or field glasses, it's an immersive experience that is uncannily calming.
   
   
4. Even the dullest-looking birds can be truly beautiful when seen through magnifying optics.
   
   
5. Watching through field glasses makes the calls and songs of the birds come alive for you.
   
   
6. Feeding birds in your backyard can help a struggling species survive long enough to adapt to today's fast-changing environmental conditions.
   
   
7. You'll build up a certain amount of "sweat equity" in your backyard ecosystem: assembling and erecting feeders, keeping them clean and upright and filled; lugging in all the food that you dispense; etc. (And none of this comes cheap, either.) That means you'll have yet another motivation to care even more about our avian cousins on the family tree of life.
   
   
8. Over time, you'll build up a sort of internal, mental field guide to the birds you rub shoulders with. You can be very proud of all the knowledge you gain ...
   
   
9. ... Not to mention your ever-growing "life list": the tally of bird species you have clapped eyes on at least once in your life.
   
   
10. Then there are the interrelationships you'll build between the birds and what you plant or install in your garden. You'll find you can't resist putting in things like honeysuckle, berry bushes, and zinnias, for instance, since they attract and feed numerous kinds of birds all by themselves. Same with birdhouses and birdbaths. Once you start realizing that all God's creatures interact with all facets of their environment, you'll know in a very practical sense what an ecosystem is meant to be.