Will wild turkeys explode after eating uncooked rice?

DEAR JOAN >> I take noon walks at a local park in Richmond, and I sometimes see piles of uncooked rice that folks have left for the wildlife. Yesterday, I saw some wild turkeys gobbling this stuff up (sorry for the pun).

Is uncooked rice healthy for birds and other animals to eat? I seem to recall hearing that it was not.

— Don, Richmond

DEAR DON >> There’s a reason that you might have heard it was unhealthy — even deadly — for wild birds to eat uncooked rice, and while there’s no harm in it, people still shouldn’t do it.

Let’s start with the myth. In 1996, advice columnist Ann Landers published a column warning wedding guests against throwing rice at newlywed couples. She said it could be deadly for any birds that ate it.

That was enough to start the rumor that birds eating the rice ended up dead in a most tragic manner. Supposedly, the raw rice absorbed water in the birds’ stomachs, causing it to expand and the bird to explode. Less hysterical people proffered the idea that the expanding rice merely gave the birds full bellies, and they were unable to eat anything else, causing them to starve with full stomachs.

Neither of those scenarios is true. Birds are quite capable of digesting rice. They do it all the time, with migrating water birds feeding at rice paddies along the way. But the damage was done, and pretty soon everyone who tossed rice at recently married couples were cut dead in the reception line, and the practice, silly and strange though it might have been, fell out of favor.

So whoever is leaving the rice out for the turkeys isn’t physically harming the birds, although they shouldn’t be doing it at all. It’s against the law to feed wildlife, and I know, I can hear you asking it now: Joan, there’s an entire industry built up around feeding birds in our yards, so why is this illegal and the other isn’t?

Feeding birds in our backyards is generally considered OK because the feeders don’t alter birds’ behavior, and the birds aren’t being lured there for nefarious reasons. The person doing the backyard feeding, however, has to accept responsibility for keeping the feeders clean to prevent the spread of disease. Feeding any birds by hand is never a good idea, because it does change the birds’ perception of humans and can create unhealthy associations.

Leaving food out for wildlife in parks or any place outside your own property is taking it a step too far, primarily because it can create a public nuisance. The poor birds that are just trying to eat what is offered could end up injured or killed either by people who don’t want them around or by the hazards in developed areas, such as dogs or vehicles.

DEAR JOAN >> Do hummingbirds fly over the Gulf to get to Mexico? That has to be nonstop right? — John Morrison, Gulf Shores, Alabama

DEAR JOHN >> Instead of following the shoreline, thousands of migrating rubythroated hummers fly roughly 500 miles, nonstop, over the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It takes 18 to 22 hours and much more dedication than I have to accomplish it.

The birds also do it alone, as hummingbirds don’t migrate in flocks. Amazing little creatures.