We’ve received a number of comments from subscribers regarding the on-line version of our June issue in place of the regular mailed issue, all of them positive. For that we thank you. If you don’t tell us about your interests and concerns, we won’t know what they are. Please don’t be shy.

The nature products industry has been moving ahead in the meantime with new initiatives designed to enhance the success of your business. One of those is the Wild Bird Feeding Industry’s survey of bird food preferences. The purpose of the study is to determine feeding choices of common feeder birds throughout the country.

This will provide a better understanding of the type of seed a particular species of bird prefers by region, by feeder type, by time of year. Once all that information has been processed and distilled you will know the answers to all your customers’ questions with regard to the feeding behavior of the birds in your area.

All of this, of course, requires funding and for that we owe a sincere debt of gratitude to some of the leading retailers and manufacturers of birding products in this country. Stepping up when the industry that feeds them needs them is what makes these companies leaders, and we can all be thankful we have business owners of that quality on our side.

What works for birds works for you, and what works for you works for your suppliers. They know it, you know it and we all profit by it.

The first phase of the program is in its third year and is expected to conclude by the end of 2008.

Financing for a study of such magnitude is a big component of an initiative like this and the W.B.F.I. Research Foundation has been very fortunate to have the backing of some major industry players. The biggest part of the effort is now in the hands of the tabulators, and what remains is to gather the final data from one last autumn feeding season.

To get to the end of that road will require just a little bit more backing from those active in the birding products industry and your help would be instrumental in getting over that final hump.

Please call Sue Hays at W.B.F.I. headquarters – (888) 839-1237 – today to let her know your help is on the way.

On another note, in keeping with our commitment to the environment this issue is printed on paper made in part from post-consumer waste. Just as with fundraising, one little step at a time from all of us will get us to our goal.