Most people, I think, hopefully understand that they are not feeding birds
simply because they think they are helping the poor birds out. If you were
to stop feeding birds in the dead of winter, they would survive just fine.
Studies have shown that birds, even those that have access to feeders, spend
a great deal of time foraging for natural foods. Bird feeding is simply
done as a way people can enjoy watching birds eating at their feeders in a
central location that they can view from their homes.

Looking at it another way, I am sure that bird feeding has increased many
peoples interest in conservation and preservation of habitat because they
want to continue to see the birds that are in their yards. Also, because of
bird feeding, many people want to improve the habitat in their own yards and
thus more are planting native plants. Granted, feeders may spread disease,
attract hawks to a central location to prey on birds, etc...but you can also
look at the benefits that bird feeding has brought, namely the increased
awareness in conservation and population status of birds. Cornell is
capatilizing on the abundance of people feeding birds in order to conduct a
study. I see nothing wrong with that. They are able to track winter
movements of birds which may help us understand more about migration
patterns that we know very little about compare to other aspects of bird
biology. Heck, if I am going to feed birds, which I would regardless of
Cornell or not, I might as well participate in their study.

The scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Universtiy do a lot
more avian research than Project FeederWatch and the House Finch Disease
Survey.

Jeff Kozma
Yakima, WA