I agree Bill, i used to love going to feed the ducks at penny flash when i was younger and i never grew out of my love for birds, thanks for the deeper insight into some possible reasons why? very interesting...
John T, i hope those three swans on your private parts were at least female
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Did you see it? It was small and brown and flew that way.........................
I feel that in times of hardship then even poor nutrition is preferable to no nutrition for many birds.
As for bread affecting water quality? - I must admit that I am extremely sceptical about this argument. I have seen this argument used at several nature reserves suggesting that bread in the water leads to a bloom of blue-green algae - never mind that some of the farms surounding some of these reserves chuck tons of fertlilizers onto the land which end up leaching into the water bodies - yet when there is an algal bloom, the apparent cause is then supposed to be because of a few bits of bread in the water........ hmmmm
Going off at a slight tangent on this subject - I know that the feeding of bread to wildfowl at reserves, municipal parks etc is frowned upon in certain circles. To me it is great that many adults take children to feed the ducks/swans and for many it will be the only contact that parents/grandparents and children have with nature and for some it may even generate a serious interest in birds that will last a lifetime.
so far then it sounds best to feed brown or whole meal bread and throw it in the water first, when there is no other food then bread is better than nothing, without it last month it would a been a really bad time for the water birds at pennington flash,
It is the first time i have been to a natiure reserve and seen a sign saying dont feed the ducks bread like in Longton Brickcroft Nature Reserve, but I did also hear that to much bread can badly affect the water quality
won't affect the water quality at penny,when it was frozen,they were waiting for me at the car park,and my 20 loafs never got as far as the water,at one point i had 30 coot attached to my leg wating for me to open the bag and 3 mute swans attacking my nether regions untill i dropped the full loaf
so far then it sounds best to feed brown or whole meal bread and throw it in the water first, when there is no other food then bread is better than nothing, without it last month it would a been a really bad time for the water birds at pennington flash,
It is the first time i have been to a natiure reserve and seen a sign saying dont feed the ducks bread like in Longton Brickcroft Nature Reserve, but I did also hear that to much bread can badly affect the water quality
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Did you see it? It was small and brown and flew that way.........................
i agree with Judith in so much as it can be a good additional source of food (but should always be soaked prior to feeding bird on a bird table for example. not so much a problem if you are feeding ducks swans and geese in the water.
too much bread being put into a water body however is actually bad for water quallity and increases the nutrient levels. fouling can also be a problem if the birds are coming out onto a general area, as at Etherow for example.
in situations like this it is prefered that grain is fed where possible, particularly if as Judith says there is no fishing gun shot for the swans to pick up.
Bread alone, where there is no natural food at all, is probably not a good thing, but supplementing a natural diet, especially if brown/wholemeal, is OK, I think. Certainly in this cold spell a lot of our wildfowl would really have suffered if they hadn't been fed by kind people. I recollect once seeing the swans at Fleetwood Marine Lake which were in very poor condition compared with ours, and there was no natural food in the concrete-lined pool at all. They presumably existed on bread alone. Too much bread in a small lake may affect the water quality or attract vermin. At Pennington Flash, there are so many wildfowl it all gets eaten very quickly! I don't give grain to swans (unless I need to catch them for line or hook removal etc- they put their heads under the water to get it and don't see the swanhook!) as they will take up grit to help digest it, and this can still contain lead angling or shooting shot which is fatal.
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Judith Smith
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Lightshaw hall Flash is sacrosanct - NO paths please!
Is it ok for us all to keep feeding the ducks and geese bread?
i heard one Rspb guide coming up with some technical reason for why we should not be feeding bread to the birds, we all know in winter when food is scarce then any food is food but is it actually bad for them or the water?
i went to Longton Brickcroft Nature Reserve this weekend and they actually have a sign up there saying pleae do not feed the ducks bread.
Being a pennington flash local i have seen this done for many years and i am still not really sure wether we are doing wrong or not?
your thoughts please?
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Did you see it? It was small and brown and flew that way.........................
is preferable to no nutrition for many birds.
