In terms of culinary delights, we recently dealt with fermentation, vegetarian pasta, Palatinate Saumagen, coconut oil and wine from Provence. All of this is not without, basically even sciences in and of themselves. Even better: apart from the Saumagen, which Helmut Kohl put in front of every head of state who got caught, these things are limitlessly hip. But now we want to shift down three gears and explore alternative gourmet terrain, as it were to come down. Those who are usually sumptuously out and about in high-end regions are allowed to drop out just as much as the classic feed nuisance, who can hardly watch when others are really eating. Because the foods that we present in the following are by no means intended for us, but for our birds. Not Bolle and Coco in the aviary, but thoseone will be able to formulate it so stupidly, "feathered friends" in the garden and on the balcony.
Kai Spanke
Editor in the features section.
Follow I follow
It is true that the populations of lapwing and partridge, skylark and turtledove cannot be fostered with bird feeding (obituaries should best be written and stored in the poison cabinet).
It is also not a substitute for a near-natural garden.
But blackbirds, sparrows and green finches are grateful for any extra offer.
Especially during the breeding season.
With this we would have reached the first point quite early in the text, at which some readers might cry out.
After all, the old rule that you should only feed in winter still has the status of a categorical imperative for many conservationists.
Even the great tit is in trouble
According to a common assumption, there is enough food available in spring and summer, you don't want to breed neglected pseudo pets, and anyway: Survival of the Fittest! In fact, the decline in insects is now so dramatic that even resistant species are having ever greater problems raising their young. In addition, millions of tons of wild herbs and seeds are lost every year due to the monocultures of intensive agriculture.
Peter Berthold, former head of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, prototypical nature boy and aggressive advocate of year-round feeding, presents the following calculation in the book "Feeding birds - but correctly" published with his wife Gabriele Mohr: Would a tenth of the approximately fifteen million house - and allotments in Germany equipped with nesting aids, natural planting and a feeding place for birds, around thirty million breeding pairs could nest there. This corresponds to about half of the bird individuals currently living with us. Please note: All of our nature reserves are located on four percent of the country's area, and all gardens take up just as much space. A lot can be done there.