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During his visit to the connective biotope system of the International Gabriele Foundation, Dr. Peter Berthold, Germany’s leading ornithologist, was surprised by the extraordinary diversity of rare birds that he saw and heard within just a few hours.

During his tour through woods and meadows, he talked about the situation of birds in Europe and the urgent need for corrective measures, as the International Gabriele Foundation has practiced them for years.

What is the situation of the birds here in Germany?

Dr. Berthold:  For one thing, intensive agriculture. Until about 1950, we had fields that were relatively sparsely covered with grain, potatoes, etc. and there was enough room for wild herbs – called weeds back then – so that a large number of larks, buntings and many others had enough to eat; for one thing through the seeds, but, of course, also through the many insects that lived on these weeds. Then came the chemical blow: All the weeds were sprayed away with herbicides. And “no weeds” means no more birds in the fields. So do the birds disappear because of a lack of food?

When you calculate the wild seeds alone that were still produced in 1950 on our fields and hedges in Germany, then that’s a minimum of one million tons of seeds that are lacking today. And that’s why 6 million field larks and 10 million corn buntings as well as partridges are missing, because they simply no longer have enough food.

What are suitable measures for helping the birds so that the populations recover?

Dr. Berthold: There’s no longer a patent recipe. Because of the climate change, right now we don’t even know how things will be for a blackbird or a great titmouse in 5 or 10 years. The only thing that we can do, and what we also should do, is to set up as many habitats as possible, that is, zones of shrubbery, wetland biotopes, etc. What you have here with this connective biotope system is absolutely optimal: a relatively large area, richly structured with many hedges and nearly natural meadows. When I see all the Carline thistles still standing here from last year – that’s the way it should be. There are still seeds in some of them that can be fetched by the birds.

And this helps the bird populations to get back on their feet again?

Dr. Berthold:

I’ve been here with you in this area for just about an hour. Over there we heard the grasshopper warbler singing and the greater whitethroat warbler in its song flight; we had the garden warbler, and, in any case, the blackcap warbler, the lesser whitethroat warbler is also here.

So you have four species of warblers. To find that in any other area, you would normally have to travel around for two days and ask ten ornithologists. Then there was a turtle dove before, and they’ve become very, very rare. And perhaps when I’m here another hour, we’ll have five more species that belong to this group. And, with this, we see that, thank God, by creating habitats here in Germany we can achieve a very strong improvement in biodiversity.

This connective biotope system that you have here, combined with year-round feeding is absolutely optimal – a bird paradise!

You mentioned year-round feeding. We hear again and again that birds should be fed only in winter, and that otherwise “affluent neglect” would occur …

Dr. Berthold: The advantages of year-round feeding are that such birds breed earlier in spring, lay more and better quality eggs, and that stronger and a larger number of offspring hatch from these eggs. This means that the reproduction success is increased and the birds have a better constitution and also live longer. If this “affluent neglect” would be the case with us human beings, we would then go to a fast food restaurant, never leave again and eat ourselves fat. But the birds don’t do that. Often they come only one single time during the day for a meal, to be fit for the rest of the day’s demands.

How large, actually, are the territories of birds?

Dr. Berthold: It varies a lot, and the more feeding stations there are, the smaller they are. The territories shrink for instance when feeding stations are put up in the woods – and it can go to the point where territories dissolve and disappear altogether. The quarreling among them for food stops; a kind of peace-making effect sets in, which is to be much appreciated. It’s all solved wonderfully here in your connective biotope system: lots and lots of feeding stations, lots of nesting boxes – it’s optimal!