The birds lose their ability to find food in nature.

- Well, one can be quite certain that the ability still exists, however, there are other angles from which to illuminate the question.

Wild birds are keen to conserve their energy, especially when it's cold, and they prefer easily accessible food at a bird feeder. But that doesn't mean they would refrain from seeking food on their own. They are prepared for the possibility that food might run out in one place and want to have multiple places to access – it's a natural behavior for birds to search for food for a large part of the day. Even animals domesticated for millennia, like cows, pigs, and chickens, retain their natural behaviors related to foraging; it's not something that can be controlled by supplemental feeding in nature. Then again, the definition of ability itself can be debated. Most people are born with the ability to run a marathon. But if we've been sitting on the couch with soda and candy for 20 years, it's quite likely we can't handle it... and it's reasonably the same with birds. If we release a great tit deep in the wild forest from a population that has had free access to mealworms and fatty seeds for several generations, it's quite likely it would have worse conditions compared to a native forest great tit.

The question we are asking ourselves is rather - do birds always have a natural environment in which to forage according to their abilities?
We want to philosophize about this in various ways.

Feeding the birds means that there are larger populations of species that are willing to be fed than there would be if we didn't feed them. For example, the house sparrow species would have decreased more significantly than it already has, as they used to live on nearly every farm where there was small-scale animal husbandry and a more vibrant landscape. Also, the migration patterns of some short-distance migrants like the blackcap, robin, chaffinch, and blackbird are affected in such a way that more stay. We might think that we have done something good for these particular individuals when they increase in number - and it is these individuals who are in our gardens, who are visible and audible, and with whom we easily get a connection.

But is this always good then? If one looks at it on a larger scale? Well, probably not in most cases. Firstly, these populations have not grown because they are supported by a richer ecosystem. In our opinion, it only becomes meaningful to talk about what is "good" or "bad" for the birds in connection with feeding them or anything else, when this is the case. (Yes, there are exceptions, such as supplementary feeding for eagles that were about to disappear due to environmental toxins, marking electric wires so that eagle owls do not fly into them, and providing targeted protection for certain rare birds' nests due to egg collecting, etc.).

We can wonder whether a large, strong, and densely populated group of great tits and blue tits negatively affects the pied flycatchers. Both compete for the same nest holes. The tits remain all year round while the flycatcher, which relies entirely on a wealth of flying insects it catches in the air, must make a trip south of the Sahara in the winter. Does a larger, better-fed blackbird population somewhat compete with other thrushes for territory and food? Does an unnaturally large house sparrow population compete with barn swallows and starlings for insects in the summer? Yes - perhaps, most likely quite negligibly but still… 

Simultaneously, the cultivation, transport, and packaging of all bird food (and other products, of course) negatively impact nature. Even organic farming affects nature negatively in this way, at least when compared to restoring farmed land to something resembling a more steppe-like or meadow-like natural area, with restored wetlands and a few grazing animals. However, in today's society, this remains a theoretical assumption as there is no economic incentive for it. 

Now you might be wondering what we at Slåttergubben are up to? It seems like we only talk negatively about bird feeding while we sell bird food. Do we really think you should feed birds?
Rest assured - yes, we think bird feeding is fantastic, especially on a modest scale and with organic and preferably Swedish food. It's a wonderfully fine and relatively harmless hobby that brings a lot of joy to us. The reason we talk like this is because our colleagues in the industry today (as of December 2021) often use rather dubious rhetoric to make us believe that by buying their products, we're benefiting nature and “the birds.” They might suggest that insects in nature are declining due to pesticides, despite selling sprayed food themselves. Alarms about “birds” declining and the need to restore the balance in nature by feeding them year-round are prevalent. However, the bird species that are declining are not the same ones we feed... We worry that their rhetoric acts as a barrier for people to create genuine biodiversity in gardens – putting on blinders instead of seeing the whole picture and how everything is interconnected. We dislike the notion that products always need to be purchased. There’s no need for insect hotels or hedgehog homes, mealworms, and the like – what's needed is time and commitment to garden diversity. The less money you spend on gadgets, the less you need to work and the more time you can dedicate to the garden. We all know there were more hedgehogs before the mass-market hedgehog homes…

We take the liberty of quoting a text about conventional suet balls here, just to give you an idea of the rhetoric that pervades the industry.

"Swedish small birds have better living conditions if we provide them with bird food and birdseed. By feeding our winter birds, the population is preserved, and we maintain the balance in nature that birds create by controlling pests in gardens, forests, and fields. Our Swedish birds also bring us much joy – what would spring and summer be without birdsong?

Start early and continue feeding throughout the year, even in summer when birds are nesting and in need of extra food."

Let’s exaggerate to the extreme - imagine a suburban area where people are meticulous about their gardens, consisting only of neatly mowed, well-fertilized, and moss-free lawns, meticulously trimmed hedges, rock gardens, pools, concrete. Every weed must go. But they buy birdhouses and bee hotels because that is how they've learned to care for nature and create diversity. Unfortunately, a trend is moving in this direction. Imagine frantic feeding in this area, people have money, and they've read that bird feeding is good for saving the declining populations of small birds. There's mealworm in the summer, peanuts, and sunflower seeds year-round. Hemp and suet balls. Here, the great tits, blackbirds, house sparrows, and blue tits have found paradise. Unlimited food and birdhouses! Birdlife is thriving - or is it? Here, with unnaturally large populations of e.g., house sparrows in a rather unnatural environment – their ability to find food on their own remains, but not the opportunity. If everyone stopped feeding in this area during winter, birds would fly away to other feeders – and for those that return, the breeding success would be disastrous as the sterile gardens offer insufficient insects.
Is it starting to resemble a zoo? What are the animals in a zoo worth if the ecosystems they are supposed to live in are gone? 

And conversely, in 2009, Janne (Slåttergubben) cycled with the family around Poland for a few weeks in the summer. In some villages in the countryside, there were plenty of small-scale and self-sufficient farms. Each farm had a few cows, chickens, etc. The abundance of birds was enormous. Lots of house sparrows and tree sparrows were just there, even without bird feeding. There were European goldfinches, skylarks, linnets, storks, corn buntings, and the pure insect-eaters that migrate in the winter, like black redstarts, white wagtails, starlings, and a striking number of barn swallows, house martins, and common swifts. Pure insect-eaters which we can never feed - because they catch insects in the air. 

The Stork in Skåne is also a good example - 150 years ago, there were about 5,000 pairs. They were there because the landscape had an enormous diversity. There were so many wetlands, arable weeds, meadows, pastures, open ditches, small fields, frogs, butterflies, large grasshoppers, beetles, rodents, and, crucially, amphibians, that these storks were naturally present - this could be called natural bird feeding. Then, things changed quite rapidly in the landscape. Agriculture was rationalized, wetlands were drained, and streams were culverted. Where it was suitable for farming, people cultivated more and more intensively - in forest areas, farms disappeared, and the land was planted with spruce. A single species - spruce - replaced thousands of species that were part of the varied broken landscape.

Today, there are once again a few pairs of storks nesting freely in Skåne. The stork project has been an advocate for the restoration of wetlands and meadows. This is good, but most of what has happened is the breeding of storks in enclosures. They are fed with fish and broiler chickens. The stork project evaluated itself in a large article in Vår Fågelvärld in 2021. They concluded that without continued breeding and release of storks, the freely nesting storks today would probably not survive many years in Skåne. The landscape is still too inadequate - the number of offspring they produce naturally is too low. Do we really have a natural population of storks in Sweden today?

If we exaggerate it even more. The red junglefowl in a domesticated variant stands in gigantic barns in flocks of tens of thousands of individuals around the world, being fed top-quality feed around the clock. Well, in shortened days, since their circadian rhythm is regulated with lights. They grow faster that way. This is the world's most extensive bird feeding. Do these individuals have intrinsic value? As a species, they have obviously had the very best strategy - they are fed by us humans to the extent that they are now the world's most common bird!