On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 13:24:21 +0100, Janet Baraclough..
wrote:

The message
from Josie contains these words:

Message from Janet Baraclough.. on
Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:11:23 Slightly OT-Feeding Birds:

The message
from contains these words:

I would have thought that most wildlife instinctively know what's good
and safe to eat.

They don't. Hedgehogs and nestling birds are easily killed by
inappropriate food provided by people.

Janet

I appreciate that the current conventional wisdom suggests that wildlife
is unable to differentiate between safe and dangerous foods; but how
true is it? Is it just hearsay; hypothesis? Birds in my garden don't
touch blue slug pellets, for example. It was once thought that adult
blue tits would suffocate their young by feeding them whole peanuts -
this is now known to be untrue. I remain unconvinced.

snip

AFAIK the risk to young bluetits is from moulds on peanuts, which are
more likely to be present on old stocks of nuts (the sort people tend to
use up after winter).

Janet.



Aflatoxin?

Geoff