Thanks to the Songbirds

Songbirds add soothing voices to our spring and summer mornings. The northern cardinal, pictured today, is a persistent singer throughout much of the year, unlike many other speices that become quiet in late summer.

Songbirds are also voracious eaters of insects and other invertebrates during the spring and summer months. Although the northern cardinal is recognized for its large seed-cracking bill which allows it to survive long and cold winters, like most permanent resident songbirds, it too switches to a protein-rich diet of small animals during the nesting season. This highly nutritious diet allows the cardinal to raise it's young and molt its own feathers each year. These are both protein intensive activities within a bird's lifecycle.

In the publication Small Change for Big Changes: Rescuing Pennsylvania's Wildlife (PA Wild Resource Conservation Fund), one human perspective of valuing songbirds is explored. If songbirds were eating only pest species in forests, they would be performing about $5,000 worth of natural pest control per acre. Of course songbirds are eating both pests and non-pest invertebrates in the eyes of humans, but the idea of placing a value on the "ecological services" we receive from nature is a growing area of study for both ecologists and economists.

Northern cardinal photo by Robert Hayes Cummins, Ohio Bird Collection.

Listen to the song of a northern cardinal (courtesy of the U.S. Department of Interior).

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