Learning To Hand Feed Birds

Once you’ve had a few bird houses and feeders placed around your house it can be natural to want to get closer to your birds and be able to interact with them more especially if you’ve been watching them for a while and you have a pretty large variety of birds coming to visit your home. There are however, a few things that you want to know before you begin to try and establish a bond with your birds. First of all it’s important to remember that some birds are protected by law so you don’t want to do anything that will interfere with their normal eating habits or cause them any harm. Also the birds that are coming into your yard, even though you may feel familiar with some of them, are still wild animals and they are not pets so keep that in mind. Also birds can carry diseases and germs so be aware of that as well and take proper precautions to make sure that you don’t contract anything or put yourself in any kind of harms way.

With those precautions in mind you can still have a lot of fun developing some trust between you and the birds that visit your backyard. The first step is to simply get them used to being in your presence. You’ll want to begin doing this by refilling the bird feeder at the same time each day. Even if it doesn’t need refilling just go out and mimic the motions. This may feel kind of silly at first but what you’re doing is allowing the birds to associate you with the food that is in the feeder. Do this for a couple of weeks until the birds have gotten a chance to identify with you that way.

The next step is for you to be outside when the come to feed. Fill the feeder up like you normally do and then stand fifteen or twenty feet away from the feeder as the birds feed just so that they can get used to your presence. It’s perfectly fine to talk to the birds as you watch them eat but be gentle as you do so and don’t make any sudden movements because this will scare them away and make the fear you. Just stay there and let them get used to you - don’t try and move closer either. Stay there for a few days as the birds slowly get used to your presence and continue to stand in the same spot each time you fill the feeder.

After the birds have gotten used to you being outside while they eat you can begin to move a bit closer. Now each time you fill the feeder stand just a few feet closer and try that out for a couple of days and let the birds adjust to your new position. Continue with this method, slowly moving closer and closer until you are able to stand right next to the feeder each morning and still have the birds come and feed from it. Once you have done that you can pour some seed into your hands and hold your hands next to the feeder. Be still and if you’re lucky a bird will come and perch on your hand and eat some of the seed. This may take time and patience so don’t give up too soon if your birds don’t immediately come over and feed from your hands. Once they have you can gradually extend the area in which your birds will come down and feed from your hands to all over your backyard.

Being able to have your birds feed out of your hands is really an amazing experience but it’s also one that takes time and dedication so practice the method above and be patient with yourself and with your birds until they get used to having you around while the eat. Soon you’ll be rewarded by having plenty of them come and eat from your hands.