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Celebrate National Bird-Feeding Month

Image by George Gentry
Image by George Gentry

It’s the start of February and we all know what that means: It’s National Bird-Feeding Month.

This year has been brutally cold with a number of snow storms passing through parts of the country. Although some birds migrate to warmer temperatures and better climates, there are still a lot of birds that hang around in areas that are hit hard by adverse weather.

So, the weather, along with the sad news that cats kill about 2.4 billion birds a year, makes it increasingly imperative that we provide birds with a safe place to feed and take shelter.

This was one of the very reasons why Congressman John Porter from Illinois read the resolution creating National Bird-Feeding Month in 1994.

Here’s the introduction to the resolution:

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize February, one of the most difficult months in the United States for wild birds, as National Bird-Feeding Month.  During this month, individuals are encouraged to provide food, water, and shelter to help wild birds survive.  This assistance benefits the environment by supplementing wild bird’s natural diet of weed seeds and insects.  Currently, one third of the U.S. adult population feeds wild birds in their backyards.

The second purpose of National Bird-Feeding Month is to spread the interest and passion of nature through birds. Anyone who has ever fed birds can tell you that there is a special bond that’s created with birds when you put out food for them.

So, if you’ve been thinking about putting up your own bird feeder or you’ve lapsed in your bird feeding, let this be an encouragement to fill up your feeders.

And if you are already regularly feeding birds, make it your goal to get someone else interested this month.

Learn more at the National Bird-Feeding Society’s website.

Timothy Martinez Jr. is a writer and freelance journalist. His work has been published in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Remapping Debate in New York City and other publications. He’s been a bird lover since he was young and currently lives in New Orleans, L.A.