Book Review

Feeding the Birds at Your Table: A Guide for Australia

By D. Jones

2019, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney

pp. 208

Price AUD $24.99, ISBN 9781742236322

Professor Darryl Jones has been investigating the interactions between people and birds for over 30 years. He has published a litany of scientific papers, but more recently he has focused on books, his growing portfolio of books include: The Birds At My Table: Why We Feed Wild Birds and Why It Matters; Getting To Know the Birds in Your Neighbourhood: A Field Guide; and Curlews on Vulture Street: Cities, Birds, People & Me; all are from NewSouth Publishing. His expertise in urban birds and their interactions with people makes him the right choice for books on Australia’s urban birds.

This book aims to provide detailed, comprehensive advice and suggestions for people wishing to feed wild birds in Australia from their own backyards and balconies. The book’s subtitle states: A Guide for Australia. However it is not a guide to where in Australia, but a guide to how – how to do it properly and what not to do, it is also about the birds. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Australian Book Industry Awards, Small Publisher’s Adult Book of the Year and was the 2020 Courier-Mail’s People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year award finalist.

This is a book in six main chapters, which include: (1) Why we need to talk about feeding birds; (2) Taking bird feeding seriously; (3) Setting the table; (4) What’s on the menu; (5) Habitat/Garden; (6) Can bird feeding be ethical, responsible and sustainable? These are followed by four appendices: illustrations, further information, thanks, index and pages for you to write your own backyard field notes. The subject matter within the chapters is appropriate for the aims, which are to provide detailed information to people that feed or plan to feed birds in their backyards.

The chapters cover, in detail, all aspects of bird feeding in Australia from the apparatus required to the bird feed and critical subjects such as disease. Basically this includes all you need to know and more. There is a short introduction focusing on the background of the author. The appendices that close out the book are simple and easy to follow.

The audience addressed is without doubt a broad general public. However, there is enough information presented in this guide to provide value to those on a more academic level, especially if these people have any interest in feeding birds. Nonetheless a read of the guide might also fill gaps in your knowledge of urban bird behaviour in general.

The strength of this book lies in the depth of research that you can not see. Research that has been formally based in reviews of the literature, again formally based in a long term research program with quality post-graduate researcher team based at Griffith University and in the more informal knowledge gathering from wildlife veterinarians, zoo keepers, nutritionists and researchers, plus organisations such as the RSPCA, BirdLife Australia and the Brisbane City Council. The author has synthesised and organised this knowledge admirably into this book. What is lacking are the in text references and the associated bibliography that supports statements of facts within the body of the book. Despite the lack of referencing, I have no doubt that this book will aid the understanding and perhaps fuel greater debate of the discipline, on how to correctly feed birds in backyards and from apartment balconies. The intended audience, people who feed wild birds, will still be educated by reading it.

The order of chapters promotes its comprehension by building knowledge from a starting point, highlighted by the first chapters title of ‘FIRST’, why we need to talk about this subject. Each chapter then builds step by step on this beginning. The writing style as with all this author’s books is engaging and clear. However, the level of research is not obvious due to the absence of formal referencing, as discussed above. Yet the deep level of research that stands behind the book will help the knowledge passed on within each chapter: knowledge that will be readily accepted by most readers. The author notes that not all readers were pleased with this book – some reviewers were forthrightly profound in their opposition to the book. The author quoting some criticisms to the book as ‘catastrophic’, ‘ill-informed’ and ‘likely to cause unparalleled harm’. I do not concur with these later sentiments. I can see the level of research that underlies this book and I am satisfied that it is far more than enough. I imagine that the criticisms come from the camp that stands as thou shall not feed wild birds. I note the book is endorsed by BirdLife Australia with their CEO stating, ‘At last, a sensible science-based guide to safely feeding wild birds in Australia.’ This is printed on the book’s front cover.

This book presents with plenty of supplementary material, most through the text. These are little icons and font changes used to highlight and help distinguish parts of the book particularly subheadings. There are a small number of well-sketched drawings and variously presented boxes, which help to present more specific or detailed information. All in all these are well done artistically – they help soften the read and make the book a little more friendly to approach.

I would instantly recommend this book to Australian readers who are thinking about feeding wild birds or wanting to do it right or do it better. I also suggest that this book will be a useful addition to public libraries across the country.