What Happens When You STOP Feeding Your Birds? A Bird Store Owner's Answer Will Surprise You

After 30 years running a wild bird store in Michigan, I can tell you what happens when you stop feeding your birds, and it's far less scary than most people think. Every December a customer would ask me if her birds would starve while she was in Florida. When researchers in Wisconsin measured it, chickadees at a winter feeder were getting only about a fifth of their daily energy from it. There is one stretch of winter, though, when an empty feeder can hurt, and I'll show you exactly when. In this video: 1. What happens on day one when your feeder goes empty 2. How birds re-route within a few days to two weeks 3. What chickadees really eat in winter, and why a feeder is a supplement 4. The Wisconsin studies on dependency and winter survival 5. The cold-snap stretch when an empty feeder can be a hardship 6. What to do before a winter trip, and good reasons to stop on purpose 7. Whether the birds will miss you I also cover feeder cleaning, taking feeders down for sick birds, and the migration myth, so you can feed wild birds with confidence. Tell me in the comments where you're watching from, and what the weather's doing outside your window right now. And if you've ever cut a trip short because of your feeders, type HOME. Subscribe to Catherine Broome - Backyard Birds for a new backyard bird video every week, so when a worry like this one keeps you up, you've got somebody who's heard them all. So feed them as long as it gives you joy, keep one eye on the January forecast, and the day you set that bag down for good, set it down without an ounce of guilt. #FeedingBirds #BackyardBirds #BirdFeeders #WinterBirds