Editorial policy

Who writes this, and who checks it

Everything on Seed & Sprig is written by Scooter M. Nobody else checks it before publication, and we are not going to imply otherwise by inventing an editorial board. What we do instead is publish the sourcing standard below and make every claim checkable.

Sourcing standards

Sources are used in this order of preference:

1. Bird behavior, feeding biology, disease and hygiene: Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including Project FeederWatch), the National Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy, and state and federal wildlife agencies.
2. Product claims: the manufacturer's own specification sheet, manual or product listing.
3. Supporting context: established trade publications and university extension services.

Never used: competitor affiliate pages, AI-generated summaries, forum posts, or recollection.

The rules that follow from that

• Every factual claim that is not self-evident carries an inline citation to the source.
• Outbound links to Cornell, Audubon, the ABC and wildlife agencies are ordinary followed links. Linking to an authority is a signal, not a leak.
• Product specifications cite the manufacturer's own documentation, not a retailer's marketing copy.
• Numbers are specific or absent. No “studies show,” no “experts agree,” no “many birders find.”
• Where sources conflict, we say so and show both figures.
• Where we do not know, we write that we do not know.

Claims we will not make

• No fabricated testing. We have not tested these products and no page says or implies that we have — including softened forms such as “in our experience.”
• No invented credentials. Nobody here is an ornithologist, a wildlife biologist or a certified professional, and there is no expert panel.
• No fabricated reviews or testimonials. There are none anywhere on this site. If you see a quote attributed to a reader, it will be a real reader, clearly attributed as such, and never restated as our own finding.
• No invented history. This site launched in 2026. There is no “since 19XX,” no founding story and no heritage.
• No manufactured urgency. No countdowns, no “act now,” no “limited time.”

How money is handled

Rankings are decided from published specifications and the criteria on the methodology page before any link is built. Commission rates are not a criterion, we accept no free product and no paid placement, and every roundup names something to skip. Full statement on the affiliate disclosure page.

Update cadence

• Roundups and comparisons: reviewed quarterly, and immediately whenever a top pick is discontinued or persistently out of stock.
• Prices: refreshed daily and date-stamped. Anything older than 48 hours is treated as no price at all.
• Seasonal guides: reviewed annually, ahead of the season they cover.
• Evergreen guides: reviewed every twelve months, or sooner if authority guidance changes.
• This page, the methodology and the disclosure: every six months, or immediately if how we operate changes.
• Cited sources: checked at every refresh. A dead link means the claim gets re-sourced or removed.

Every page shows a published date and a last-updated date. The updated date reflects a real content edit — not a deployment, which happens daily when prices refresh.

Corrections

1. Report it to info@seedandsprig.com or through the contact form. Point at the page and the claim.
2. We check it against the source rather than against our memory of it.
3. Factual errors are fixed as fast as we can — usually the same week.
4. Material corrections are noted on the page with a date. Silently editing a page to hide an error is the thing we are trying not to be.
5. Typos and broken links are fixed without a note.

Reader reports

We are interested in what actually happened in your yard, and if we publish it, it will be attributed to you as a reader report — never absorbed into the site's voice as though we had observed it ourselves. That distinction is the whole point.

Comments and community

The site has no comment section at present. Email is the route, and it is read by a person.

Contact

info@seedandsprig.com. We answer email within two business days. Seed & Sprig is operated by Slate Mill Group.