Feeding birds antisocial?

[Feedthebird]

After not topping up the feeder for a while I’ve started feeding the birds again.
There are so many - I have parakeets, starlings, jackdaws, robin, sparrows and other small birds.
Due to the orientation of my house the feeders are close to the street. Is this antisocial as many of the birds are landing on the trees which are on the street.

YANBU - the birds need feeding
YABU - for encouraging birds onto the streets trees

Didn’t take long for the gull and pigeon hate to rear up did it 🙄

Gulls are wild birds too and also need to eat.

Pigeons are so hard done to, they’re domesticated birds that us selfish humans abandoned when we didn’t need them anymore. They’re not great at looking after themselves and gravitate towards humans for help. Help them!

I feed my garden birds every day, have hundreds of them and it's a joy. Never seen a rat. All suspended feeders.

@SkySecret agree about the pigeons. I have two old dears who waddle around at my kitchen door in the morning for a little breakfast. They eat then sit on the fence and snooze. Harmless and defenceless.

I look after wildlife by leaving it alone.

But then I am antisocial.

I feed the birds, they need all the help they can get as we are destroying their habitat.
I love watching the birds. It would be a sad sad world if we didn't care for wildlife.

We feed the birds but only mealworms. No waste on the floor means no rats.
The rats have only ever been seen on the street feasting from the discarded fish and chip, MacDonald’s, kfc and Greg’s food dropped by humans too lazy to use a bin. …or when the recycling plant goes up in flames - then the rats rush out to escape being bbq’d.

Deal with your phobia then.

@HellsBells67 I'm fond of pigeons too. I have two that come and use the water bowl as a spa when it's warm - they very sweetly take it in turns to sit in it for twenty minutes each while the other one keeps them company.
They always clean up below the bird feeder for me too.

No one cares about two pigeons.

Everyone hates the people who throw lots of food waste out and attract loads of them. If you're that person, your neighbours hate you.

I'd be very happy to have more birds coming to my garden but my neighbour feeds the bloody pigeons all the time which crap everywhere and seem to cause more interesting birds to stay away, so I wish she'd stop.
I wouldn't consider it antisocial behaviour though. I reserve that for graffiti, littering etc not feeding birds!

I agree

I think it’s sensible to stay away from suet pellets and fat balls or other ‘fat’ based products and to stick to high quality bird seed or peanuts, don’t hang the feeders from trees and only feed as much as they will polish off in a day. Use a metal pole, high off the ground. We learned to our cost (chewed coolant pipes in the car engine - £300 of damage) that you do need to be careful not to overdo it. As a rough estimate, you are probably increasing the local rodent population by around the same ratio as you are increasing the number of birds. We love feeding the birds but we are a bit more switched on nowadays and even leave humane mousetraps under the car at night. We are quite rural and have no neighbours to consider.

Mice rather than rats, but mice can do a lot of damage to a car engine and are definitely not welcome!

I find feeding birds very antisocial. In my old house, the neighbour used to feed the birds daily. They would all wait for him on the electricity lines and shit all over my toddler’s trampoline, slide and other toys so I was always out there having to clean bird shit off everything. Not to mention it encourages rats.

Don't be so daft. We've fed the birds for years and the feed has never attracted rats.

Are you getting help for your phobia?

Of course it's not antisocial! Sounds lovely.

I mean one or two feeders is fine but I’m sure I read a news article where someone was told my their local council their bird feeding. Was anti social behaviour. Off to see if I can’t find it agai.

I wouldn't thi k that's antisocial? Throwing food for gulls near homes and thereby encouraging them to nest on houses is antisocial as they're vicious bastards if they think you're going near their babies who fall into people's gardens (bitter experience from numerous places I've lived!) but small birds and other small local wildlife? Not really.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/27/elderly-woman-threatened-with-fine-for-feeding-birds/#:~:text=“The%20anti%2Dsocial%20behaviour%20is,the%20potential%20to%20cause%20disease.

also available to read in the daily mail or standard

Use feeders that have a catch-tray underneath (or put one of those plastic saucers for plant pots under it using some cable ties).

Cuts right down on the droppage, and I find the pigeons, sparrows and starlings will pick up what there is very quickly.

My back garden resembles a Hitchcock film some days but the rat population that pre-existed the feeders is lower now than it was, because we have more birds picking up more food, the dogs run out and chase any furry things and will deal with rats swiftly (but not the birds) and the sparrowhawk and buzzard visit more often.

We stopped feeding the birds because of rats. We had hanging feeders in the trees. The rats would sit below the feeders waiting for the birds to drop seeds.

We stopped feeding the birds recently due to the risk of bird flu. Advice here is to keep cats indoors because of the risk. That's impractical so we decided not to encourage the birds instead. Within a few days all the birds had disappeared. It was so depressing going in the garden and not hearing a single tweet. So they're being fed again.

I agree, some people revel in sucking all the joy out of life.

It depends OP, what do your neighbours think? Do they have any problem with it or have they even noticed at all?!

And do you live near seagulls? I was randomly attacked by a seagull while eating something once (and no I was not on the beach) so I’m wary of them. And in my childhood town they’d randomly attack people walking by.

Aside from that don’t think I’ve ever had neighbours with bird feeders so it’s never came up as an issue and I’ve never thought of them as anti-social. I have only cringed when I’ve seen the odd random person throwing out stale bread in the middle of a park and being swarmed by pigeons 🤢

@bossybloss Whether you have a phobia or strongly dislike rat it’s understandable - ignore those telling you to go get “help” for your rat phobia 🙄Unless you work as a rat catcher or something you really don’t need to “get over it”. Would be easier to just continue to avoid them. I find them absolutely disgusting but thankfully don’t encounter them except when I visit NYC 😆

It's not antisocial! My mum has loads of bird feeders in her gardens and she hasn't got any rats as far as I'm aware. Only reason I don't feed them is because we have cats.