BirdNote; How Much Do Birds Eat?

BirdNote®

How Much Do Birds Eat?

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

[Chatter of Pine Siskin, http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/44845]

There used to be a saying about somebody who doesn’t eat much — “she eats like a bird.” Just a little of this and a smidgen of that. But how much does a bird typically eat? And how much would you have to eat to match it? Well, depends on the bird.

As a rule of thumb, the smaller the bird, the more food it needs relative to its weight. A Cooper’s Hawk, a medium-sized bird that hunts other birds, eats around 12% of its weight per day. For you, if you weigh … say … 150 pounds, that’s 18 pounds of chow — roughly six extra-large pizzas.

[Calls of Cooper’s hawk [140257] recorded by Gerrit Vyn]

[Calls of Black-capped Chickadee http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/117803 :08 on]

That perky little chickadee flitting back and forth for sunflower seeds from your feeder eats the equivalent of 35% of its weight. You, as a 150-pound chickadee, will be munching 600 granola bars a day.

And a tiny hummingbird? It drinks about 100% of its body weight per day. That means you’ll be sipping 17½ gallons of milk. Prefer wine or beer? 18 gallons.

If it’s warm outside, you can probably get by on a bit less. But if it’s cold, you’ll need more. So you’d best stock up.

For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.

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Call of the Pine Siskin provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. [44845] recorded by G.A. Keller, [140257] recorded by Gerrit Vyn, and [117803] recorded by S.R. Pantle.

BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Sallie Bodie

© 2016 Tune In to Nature.org November 2018/2019 Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# eating-01-2016-11-23 eating-01

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/how-much-do-birds-eat-each-day/

https://www.peregrinefund.org/explore-raptors-species/Cooper's_Hawk