Elon Birds and Seed Size

Allyson Vogel

1 Dec. 2021
Introduction

The common phrase “you are what you eat” rings true more than some wish, and it is a

known fact that what a living being eats affects it further down the road. If food is not eaten, then

the body has no energy to function. The digestion of food leads to the process of specific food

affecting the body by leading to different amounts of energy. Humans and birds are very similar

to each other in the effects of food, so they have the right to be opinionated on what they eat.

There is a challenge for birds in that they eat what they are naturally inclined to eat such as seeds

or bugs, but those seeds may come in different sizes. Different seed characteristics can impact

dietary preferences in birds. In a study, house sparrows preferred seeds of intermediate size, and

size seemed to be the only significant characteristic that birds showed a preference (Titulaer et al.

2018). The goal was to find what factors played a role in what birdseed a specific group of birds,

house sparrows, preferred. The size of a seed is a major factor when in relation to the beak size

of a bird because the bird can only eat seeds that will fit in its beak (Price 1987).

Understanding those preferences can lead to people better supporting the surrounding bird

species.

For this study, the goal is to learn if the Elon birds with their variety of beak sizes show a

preference towards a specific seed size. The study hypothesis is that Elon birds will show a clear

preference in birdseed size—small, big, or the mixture of big and small—they will prefer the

small seed size. The birds will most likely show a preference for the small seed because it is

easiest to break with their beaks and easy to digest in comparison to the large birdseed. The size

of birdseed is one of the factors that can influence bird preference in addition to the actual type

of seed used. This knowledge of bird preference on seed size is biologically significant because

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the ideal habitats can be predicted for those birds and determine what birdseed is best to attract

the local Elon birds.

Methods

There were three bird feeders set up at the same height of 1.2 meters from the ground in a

field, where bird feeders are already present, and the feeders were 1 meter apart from each other.

The field already has other bird feeders present, so birds already know it as a place to go for

food. A bag of sunflower seeds was divided into two categories, big and small. The small seed

size is about a third the size of the big seed. One feeder contained small seeds. The second feeder

had large seeds, and the third feeder had an even split of both small and large seeds, which acted

as the control group. Since there was a mixture of both types of seed in the third feeder, the birds

eating from this feeder would not show a particular preference for the big or small seeds

specifically. The feeders were left out for twelve hours for six different days over three weeks of

repeated trials, and the amount of seed eaten between the three different bird feeders was

recorded and compared. The organisms studied are the local Elon birds, which are a wide range

of birds. They were observed from a distance, and observations were recorded of what birds

were seen at the bird feeders. These observations happened every six hours, and the weather was

noted also. The bird observations were difficult to record due to distance and limited knowledge

of Elon bird species. The data collected was a comparison of how much seed was eaten between

the three feeders through recording the mass of the remaining seed after each twelve-hour period.

This data was analyzed with an ANOVA TEST since the data, the amount of birdseed consumed,

is from the three different feeders with different seed types, and by analyzing the variances

between all groups there was the opportunity to tell if there was a significant difference in

consumption between the different sized birdseeds.

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Results

There were six days that data was recorded, and for each of the three bird feeders the

mass of daily seed eaten was collected.

Figure 1. The mass (g) of birdseed eaten each day for a 6-day trial for the seed types of small,

large, and control.

As displayed in figure 1, the large seed had the largest average amount of seed eaten in a

single 12-hour feeding period, which was 93.1 grams on day six. For a majority of the days,

there was a seed type that was eaten more than the other two seed types, but there was no pattern

over the six days that continued with the most of one seed type being eaten.

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Figure 2. Overall averages of the mass of the eaten birdseed (n=6 for each seed type) for the seed

types of small, large, and control. Bars indicate standard error.

After the six different days of collecting data, the overall average amount of seed eaten

for the small seed was 35.4 g, the large seed was 39.8 g, and the control seed group was 25.6 g

(Fig. 2). The large seed did have the highest average amount of seed eaten over the six different

days. The standard deviations for each seed type were all fairly high.

After running an ANOVA test to compare the three overall averages of the seed eaten,

the results were found to not be statistically significant by the Tukey-Kramer Test. In addition to

that test, the P-value was 0.624, so the results were found to not be statistically significant.

Discussion

With the results of the experiment, the hypothesis, which was that Elon birds will show a

clear preference of seed, was not supported. Also, the prediction that the Elon birds will prefer

the smaller seed due to the beak size and ease of digestibility was not supported. Even though the

large seed had the highest overall average eaten, there was no statistically significant preference

between the three different seed types. The prediction that small seeds would be preferred was

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based on the perception that Elon birds were smaller and would therefore have smaller beaks,

and for this experiment, the feeders were open to all types of birds in the Elon area. With this

understanding and results, Elon birds are perhaps bigger than originally thought, and with this

size difference, the larger birds would be able to eat either type of seed used during the

experiment, which could support the results from this experiment.

Most of the background studies focused on one bird species, and for this experiment,

there was no true way to isolate a specific bird species, since the bird feeders were in an open

field. With the significant possibility of different bird species eating from the bird feeders, there

would be differing beak sizes involved. This experiment shows that Elon birds do not have a

significant preference between the big and small sunflower seeds offered, and even though other

studies have found seed size to be a significant factor, Elon birds do not have an opinion on the

size of sunflower seeds.

With these results, there are other future experiments that can further this research.

Focusing on individuals in a single species is a possibility and experimenting if they have a

preference on the seed types offered in this experiment. Another option is working with several

known, and different species, but isolating those birds so the provided seed is the only food

option. Also researching more into the surrounding Elon bird species would support a better

understanding as to what other seed types to try when repeating this experiment.

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 Literature Cited

Price. 1987. Diet variation in a population of Darwin’s finches. Ecology. 68(4):1015–1028.

Titulaer M, Melgoza-Castillo A, Macías-Duarte A, Panjabi AO. 2018. Seed size, bill

morphology, and handling time influence preferences for native vs. nonnative grass seeds in
three declining sparrows. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. 130(2):445–456. doi:10.1676/17-
003.1.