Friday, August 21st, 2026, 4:32 pm
Teaching Young People to Feed Wildlife
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think we now have 3 flocks of birds we can regularly feed and easily find. They almost chase us, even before any clapping (to get their attention).
Today I opened a new jar for Bottle’s Friend, the biggest of the birds. I enjoy seeing him eat. This mix is more premium than the typical premium, there are some very expensive seeds in it.
It is kind of sad that, at least the way it seems to us, many young people and kids (young adults sometimes still act like kids) waste their live away at skinnerboxes and “apps”. They could derive so much more joy from birding. And these are living things like us, with emotions, sometimes hunger, sometimes fear.
If we teach people – preferably when they’re still young and gradually form leanings – to be kind to animals they will also learn to be kinder to other human beings. Societies thrive in empathy and collaboration.
At the park, Rianne and I sometimes teach very young kids to feed the birds instead of chasing them. We say, “they are like friends…”
