Swoop wild bird food provided a varied selection of seeds to attract wild birds such as Blue Tits to gardens, and being available through the rapidly expanding supermarkets also brought the notion of feeding birds to public attention.
61 : Swoop wild bird food
c. 1958
Swoop wild bird food provided a varied selection of seeds to attract wild birds such as Blue Tits to gardens, and being available through the rapidly expanding supermarkets also brought the notion of feeding birds to public attention.
People have at least casually fed those bird species that became commensal or habituated to human settlements as far back as ancient Egypt, but the earliest recorded incident of intentional bird feeding appears to be that of Saint Serf, who lived in Fife, Scotland, from c.500 to 583 AD. In more recent times, harsh winters at the end of the 19th century saw newspapers and magazines encouraging the feeding of wild birds, and in the 20th century it became a national pastime.
Kitchen scraps and stale bread aside, the commercial prospects of selling foods manufactured specifically for wild birds became truly apparent in late 1940s America, when the Wagner Brothers Feed Company and Knauf & Tesch collaborated on combining their animal and pet food products to create a market for commercial bird food. Capitalising on the post-war growth in suburban living, they inspired many proud owners of back yards to begin putting food out for birds.
In late 1950s Britain, the launch of a brand of bird seed called Swoop soon cornered the domestic market for the ensuing decade. By the 1970s, it was on sale in most pet shops for around 25 new pence, its popularity increased by possibly the first appearance of Bill Oddie in a bird product advert. Swoop contained around a dozen species of weed seed imported from the Near East and North Africa, many of which then grew as exotic aliens in English gardens. The mix included sunflower, millet, wheat, flakes of maize, hemp, peanuts, linseed, barley and many weed seeds inadvertently included as part of the same harvests.
The popularity of the product was later eclipsed by the RSPB and other pet shop brands, which began providing fat and suet balls, seed mixes intended for different groups of birds, and latterly Nyger seed for smaller seed-eating finches such as Siskin and Goldfinch in particular. Many cage and aviary bird seed suppliers, notably Haith’s, quickly began producing wild bird mixes and became market leaders, while a good number of farms such as Vine House Farm now grow crops solely for the purpose of providing seed mixes for wild birds. The last decade has seen a continuing expansion of this market into major supermarkets and garden centres, and even the widespread option of a bulk-buy pick’n’mix-type selection from large tubs at many RSPB reserves.
Such a simple and direct product and market relationship has surprisingly harboured scandal recently, when US company Scotts Miracle-Gro was fined $4.5 million in 2012 for knowingly supplying 73 million packets of wild bird seed contaminated with dangerous pesticides, of which they were only able to recall two million in time to prevent them from being used. It is impossible to know how many birds were killed by this huge quantity of poisoned seed, but a San Diego couple who fed the product to almost 100 aviary birds in January 2010 were left with a mere eight individuals shortly after.