January is the month of coming to terms with holiday overindulgence. While you concentrate on protein and vegetables, share your extra carbs with winter birds.Consider the fact that each tiny bird seed contains a bit of starch surrounded by a hard seed coat. If the bird does not crack the coat, its digestive system must break it down before the starch is available. That takes energy, often more than the seed itself contains. This illustrates why the old practice of scattering breadcrumbs for wild birds benefits them far more than offering wild birdseed.Feeding wild birds doesn't have to cost you money for seed. Kitchen scraps can offer far more nutrition than many commercial birdseed mixes. Consider how many starchy leftovers you compost, throw away or grind up in the garbage disposal. Winter birds would gobble these up, benefiting immediately from the quickly digested high-calorie load.Bread is the most traditional bird food. Birds will flock to a dinner roll, biscuit or cornbread. For smaller birds, consider breaking up bread in a blender, coffee grinder or food processor to a fine meal they can eat more quickly. Crumbly starches such as pie crust or cake are easy to break up with your fingertips.How often do you discard leftover pasta? The moisture in cooked pasta is much appreciated by birds in dry snowy climates where water sources froze over. Serve it heated from the microwave for a warmup meal.
via poconorecord.com
This is an interesting article about feeding wild birds. It explains how often kitchen scraps can be more nutritious than bird seeds and how bread, rice, pasta and cereals etc are all good food for the birds.
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