Welcome to the study “To Feed or Not to Feed Wild Birds”!
This study is conducted by the Department of Zoology, Faculty of Biology, at the University of Innsbruck. It investigates how bird feeding influences the welfare of nestlings.
What Does Participation Involve?
We are looking for people with a garden in Innsbruck, Rum or Völs—including garden owners and renters—who are willing to take part in an experiment that will run from late summer 2025 until June 2027. If you join the study, you will receive:
- Two nestboxes: one for great tits and one for black redstarts *
- A bird feeder *
- Bird food to use during the feeding phase.
* Kindly note that the nestboxes and bird feeders must be returned at the end of the study, which will conclude in summer 2027.
Your garden will be assigned to one of two treatments—with bird feeding or without bird feeding—which will alternate over the two years of the study. For example, if your garden is in the "with bird feeding" group in Year 1 (October 2025 – June 2026), it will switch to "without bird feeding" in Year 2 (October 2026 – June 2027), and vice versa.
What Does Participation Require?
We will visit your garden several times (approx. 10 visits per year):
- Once in September or October 2025 to set up the feeder and nestboxes, provide food for the feeding period, and go over the next steps with you.
- Up to 10 times between April and June 2026 and again in 2027 to monitor nestbox occupancy and follow reproduction.
Participants will ensure the feeder is regularly filled during the feeding phase (October–June). Participants interested in being more actively involved will have the opportunity to:
- Help check nestbox occupancy (once a week in April),
- Conduct short observational sessions (10 minutes at least twice per week while a nestbox is occupied) to record bird visitation and interactions.
Updates and detailed information are available on our project webpage.
This project is funded by the Wild Animal Initiative.
There are 23 questions in this survey.