Why Keeping Your Bird Feeders Up During Summer Can Be A Huge Mistake

For avid birdwatchers, the benefits of having a bird feeder in your yard are self-evident. There's no wrong time of year to enjoy watching feathered friends visit your yard, but as it turns out, you may want to think twice before leaving your bird feeder up during the summer. How important it is to remove them seasonally depends on where you live, or more specifically, who lives there with you — namely, bears.

While birds love the seeds and suet found in feeders, unfortunately, so do bears. Black bears are especially a problem since they have a widely distributed population, a taste for nearly any food they can find, and a sense of smell even stronger than a dog's that lets them sniff out their next meal from over two miles away. Because of this, it's recommended to only leave out bird feeders when bears are hibernating — this means taking feeders down by April 1, or earlier if the weather warms up sooner, and waiting to put them back up until around November.

Is taking bird feeders down for the summer always necessary? If you're in an area with low bear activity, no. But that's a big "if" — though bear activity and population vary by location, the only state with zero bears is Hawaii. If Google isn't helping you determine whether you're in a bear hotspot, you can consult your local wildlife authorities.

If you're in the clear and your feeder is staying out, there are still some precautions to bear in mind (pun intended). The most important thing is keeping your feeder and the area around it clean. Heat and rain spoil bird seed quickly, so change it more often, especially if you notice birds eating it less. Suet handles the elements even worse and can make birds sick when spoiled, so switch from suet to seed for the summer.

In known bear zones, it's best to take the feeder down and store it somewhere bears can't access, like a closed garage. Even though there are ways to keep hungry bears out of your backyard bird feeder, they may still associate your home with food and keep coming back. The more bears learn to take food from humans, the more their natural foraging habits change, causing them to become bolder and more aggressive. But keeping bears out doesn't have to keep birds out, too — there are still bird feeder alternatives that naturally attract birds to your yard.