Birds & Bears & Beers

I will probably never live this down. Yesterday morning I posted what I thought was a perfectly normal question and I got some curiously irreverent answers.

Should I stop feeding the birds during our local beer season? I feel bad about letting the birds down.

It honestly took me several minutes to figure out the problem.

CORRECTION: Should I stop feeding the birds during our local BEAR season? Gotta love my witty friends, lol.

The past week has been full of alternating stories of smoke-filled air and bears on the move in Columbia/HoCo. The following is the first page of a Google search for “bears Columbia Maryland”:

The advert for Build a Bear and the link for Hammond Golden Bears football made me smile.

But the question remains: should I discontinue feeding the birds? Am I creating a needless bear hazard? On the other hand, what does it do to all the birds who have been relying on the feeders?

Yes, I’ve heard that one actually shouldn’t be feeding birds in the summer at all, only in the winter. (I did stop putting out suet.) But the birds keep coming, and I enjoy watching them. Am I encouraging “feeder dependence” merely for my own amusement? As I confessed to a friend yesterday, I have an extremely hard time feeling as though I’ve let anybody down. I’ve even managed to be guilt tripped by stuffed animals.

I’m open to your advice on this. If you feed the birds, do you stop in the summer? If not, do you bring in all feeders during - - ahem - - Bear Season? When do you put them back?

Speaking of beer, I got some delightful responses to yesterday’s request for local beer names. Look for a post about that soon. One of my friends, responding to my “Beer Season” blooper, declared that “Beer Season is forever.” That must be true, because the folks from Hops & Harvest Festival started running their promos for this year’s event the minute that Wine in the Woods was over.

If you’re planning ahead, the Hops & Harvest Festival will be on October 7th in Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.

If you have any advice on Birds & Bears, you know where to send it.

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