Improving mental health through experiencing nature and wild birds.

 I have often felt that we need to get scientists to do research on the benefits of backyard bird feeding on mental health. I see the joy that bird feeding brings to people, both young and old. Recently, I was happy to come across an interesting study that does link bird watching with positive mental health and I wanted to share this study with you.

Research done by academics at the University of Exeter, the British Trust for Ornithology and the University of Queensland was recently published in BioScience Journal (Vol 67, Issue 2, 1 February 2017) and links the abundance of backyard birds and plants in a neighborhood with lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress.

The study looked at 1023 adults in southern England and evaluated how the abundance of vegetation, the abundance of birds and bird diversity affected mental health in the area. The study concluded that people living in neighborhoods with greater levels of vegetation and greater afternoon bird populations had less severe depression, anxiety, and stress. The study could not find a link to bird diversity, meaning that it was more the abundance of birds than the different types of bird that affected mental health. The study also linked greater time outdoors with a more positive state of mind. This would seem to indicate that the ability to experience the outdoors including hearing the birds sing was an important factor.

So what does this study mean for urban planners and people who run public facilities like senior citizen homes?  Could we improve the mental health of our communities while supporting nature, by adding more green spaces to communities, and to take it one step further, by putting in bird feeders to make those spaces more interactive with nature? 
There's a little food for thought for you. 

Which foods to use to attract woodpeckers to your backyard.

We are seeing quite a few of pictures of woodpeckers including flickers and downy woodpeckers posted on bird watching sites right now.   I am always excited to see a woodpecker on my feeder. They are just such beautiful birds.  If you want to attract these showy birds to your backyard here is a very brief outline of some of the different types of bird food to consider.

Peanuts
Woodpeckers seem to enjoy peanuts. While the picture above shows in shell peanuts, we also recommend offering skinless or red skinned peanuts in an appropriate peanut feeder. This will attract woodpeckers and also birds like nuthatches.

Suet

Woodpeckers love suet. We would recommend our Pine Tree Farms Peanut Butter or Insect Suet.

Sunflower Chips
Woodpeckers enjoy sunflower seed and sunflower chips in particular. We recommend our Mother Nature's Medium Sunflower Chips served in a tray feeder or fly through feeder

Jay and Woodpecker Mix
Our Mother Nature's Jay and Woodpecker mix is a good all purpose mix for attracting woodpeckers. It has a high peanut content and also has striped sunflower seed which many of these larger woodpeckers have no trouble handling.

For more information on these products see our website.