An April 17 letter to the editor stated that reducing the use of wild bird seed will reduce the tick population on our lawns, presumably out of a belief that the birds visiting an empty feeder will, instead, eat ticks.  

Although I probably dislike ticks, particularly deer ticks, as much as the letter writer, the available science suggests that birds, other than guineafowl, chickens, wild turkeys and perhaps ducks and geese, don’t typically eat ticks. Ticks are mostly eaten by a variety of other natural predators such as ants, spiders, frogs and snakes, to name just a few. Even those predators feed on ticks only occasionally and would not be effective at significantly reducing tick populations.  

Please keep feeding the wild birds. Their habitats are under severe stress from many things, including development, timber harvesting, pesticides and landscaping with non-native flowers and trees. Every year, wild birds are losing more of the woods, fields and ponds they need to live and reproduce. We are already seeing the loss of wild bird species in Maine. Backyard feeders are not a long-term answer, but they help, and they bring a little joy into our world.

Patrick Norton
Freeport