Birdsong

[rareboy]

As a child and teen, growing up in southern Ontario, spring was a cacaphony of birdsong.

We now live in the country on a 200 acre farm where more than half is given over to natural habitat and the rest is organic hay.

When I wake up in the morning, I am straining to hear the sogns of birds and even this evening, I only hear about 5 or 6 around the house.

Do you notice the collapse of bird populations in your own area?

 

[NotHardUp1]

Have heard of the collapse of numbers, but not sure I can detect it here.

I live in a suburban area of Huntsville, and drive by moderate acreage of farms growing corn, soybeans, or cotton. Those fields are diminishing every year as multifamily, strip malls, and housing development burgeon with the city's growth. Rocket City, USA is booming.

My little 2-acred tract is amid woods bordering on a modest pond two lots above me, woods behind and in front of me,, and in a devlopment of 1-acre lots where they didn't cut down every tree to plant bushes and saplings as all the developments are doing now.

So, birds aSbound. Robins, barred owls, hawks, cardinals, finches, bluebirds, sparrows, wrens, thrushes, doves, nuthatches, chickadees, mockingbirds, orioles, and several others. I put out a feeder with sunflower seeds, finch seed mix, meal worms, and suet feeders.

The birdsong has been so loud that I had a now inactive member of JUB as me if I lived in a bird sanctuary when we were talking by phone and I was at my garage door.

At times when it's quiet, I always assume the hawk is up there, some 80 feet or more and I just haven't seen her. Occasionally, I find feathers near the feeder as evidence a dove or other has been taken.

My cat probably has taken some nestlings, but she doesn't have front claws so cannot climb any tree, only bushes, and few have nests. She also takes baby bunnies and voles, which is her due.

 

[Kahaih]

It has grown rather quiet over the last few years. To the point that I was concerned about hearing loss, so any time someone stops by I ask them if they hear birds. LOL But no-one else hears them either.

I was just noticing yesterday that my hedges don't have many nests in them anymore. They used to be riddled with nests.

 

[gsdx]

Birds used to be plentiful in my immediate neighbourhood when there were lots of old-growth trees. We lost a pile of them quite some time ago when a huge wind storm came through. The rest of them were taken down when the property next door was sold.

These days, it's mostly just pigeons and blackbirds.

Last week, a mourning dove moved in across the street and it's such a delight to hear its mournful call again.

 

[Latimer]

Although our house is surrounded by large, mature trees, we see and hear far fewer songbirds than when we first moved here twelve years ago. I particularly miss the mockingbirds which would sing at night. However, we now have hummingbirds, which we rarely saw previously. It became particularly noticeable about three years ago. I speculated that our long drought led to a decrease in the insect population which, in turn, led to fewer birds. Just this spring we've noticed a few more birds, including one with a long, complex and beautiful song that we hadn't heard previously.

We continue to see and hear crows. Sometimes they drive us crazy, but I'm happy to put up with the noise because I find their familial devotion and camaraderie admirable. I look upon them with a certain fondness because I once read--but have never been able to confirm from another source--that the ancient Greeks thought they were inhabited by the souls of fallen warriors.

There is an estuary at the border between Montecito and Santa Barbara (donated, I believe, by the mother of the late eccentric heiress Huguette Clark) that I remember used to be home for hundreds of waterfowl. On recent visits I feel lucky when I see three or four, and there are times when I see none at all.

My partner and I strayed recently near Cabo San Lucas in Baja California visiting a resort that had been so heavily watered and planted (Baja is desert) as to resemble a tropical paradise. One of our great pleasures was hearing the birds.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Although our house is surrounded by large, mature trees,

I'm not sure how many songbirds nest in large deciduous trees. Their young would be vulnerable to squirrels, hawks, and other predators in such exposed branches.

Most songbirds I see here nest in shrubs, or on buildings like swallows, which are hard to get to by cats, snakes, etc.

I'm pretty certain gray squirrels have raided and killed the bluebird young in the box I mounted. There have to be extra measures taken to prevent squirrels from killing and eating young.

Raccoons are also predatory as well as oppossums when they climb trees. I'm pretty certain rats also do it.

 

[PalacePaul]

 

[rareboy]

I suspect that pesticides and insecticides are the main reason for loss of birds....we don't even have roaming cats out here in the country.

 

[NotHardUp1]

View attachment 2511305

After you get past the issue of the data not being validated or having a supported margin of error, then there is the issue of the causes cited.

We've created an ecosystem in cities and suburbs that is highly artificial, lacking a top predator.

Maybe with the evolution of coyotes to exploit urban environments is the answer. As they return to their natural ranges, they'll easily pick off domestic cats.

If cats are overrunning other species, then the answer is to curb the cats. They would never exist in large numbers in a natural system. We have created the imbalance and then we have those defending the feral cat population where they could have never competed with the native range of bobcats, bears, panthers, and coyotes.

Feral cats do not belong in the wild.

Rodents are controlled by owls and other predators.

As a footnote, there was plenty of birdsong yesterday as I returned from the mailbox, and there are still many fields of crops in the area and an embarrassing number of neighbors treating their lawns annually with pesticides. Most songbirds aren't diminished here.

 

[NotHardUp1]

This article seems to point the finger at loss of habitat, although it concedes it is speculative, and that populations are estimated using recently accepted methodology, so it's not like we have long-term year-over-year data that is unchallenged.

Vanishing: More Than 1 in 4 Birds Has Disappeared in the Last 50 Years

From the Autumn 2019 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. If you were alive in the year 1970, more than one in four birds in the U.S. and Canada has disappeared within your lifetime. According to research published online in September by the journal Science, wild bird populations in the c

www.allaboutbirds.org

 

[Kahaih]

/\/\ @ footnote plenty of birdsong

Several times you have talked about a sizable stream on your property. I'm sure that attracts a lot of wildlife -- definitely birds. A lot more than you would be seeing/hearing without it.

 

[Alistair]

I hear and see a lot of birds but I live along the river. Not to change the subject but this spring I didn’t hear the frogs like I usually do.

 

[Kahaih]

/\ I've read many times about how scientists can judge the quality of the water body by the population and health of the frogs.

I wonder, though, if the lighter winters and extended springtimes might be throwing their cycles off - maybe they're not all coming out in one big blast? This would only apply to the north where hard winters used to be the norm, of course, and might, somewhat, apply to the birds, as well?

 

[belamyi]

They are speaking of that... my area has been "gardenified" along with the building over marshes and crop land during the past decades, so even the latter bird and MoM Nat apocalypse still leaves us plenty of spring and summer "swallowing" and early morning chirping that rival the morning concert in my grandparents hamlet thirty and forty years ago.

Actually, tourists find it all very fascinating, particularly "the green birds", the closest plague to the atavic city pigeon plague...

 

[fredroy]

The amount of little noisy dinosaurs screaming for sex seems to be normal here.

 

[NotHardUp1]

/\/\ @ footnote plenty of birdsong

Several times you have talked about a sizable stream on your property. I'm sure that attracts a lot of wildlife -- definitely birds. A lot more than you would be seeing/hearing without it.

Yes, a riparian zone is all around this suburb, so the whole area would enjoy more wildlife in general.

It's also worth noting that a songbird decine isn't necessarily some march to endangered status or extinction. We really have no good way to know what the populations were pre-Columbian, right up to the 21st century.

We do know about some game birds, expecially those that were over hunted in the 20th century.

It is certainly possible that we increased songbird populations as we built out across the continent, creating more woodland edge than ever before. We falsely believe songbirds predominantly live in deep woods, whereas many species actually thrive in the border zones of meadows and woodlands, which is what a lot of towns were before everyone began growing seas of alien grasses.

So, it's possible the decline may be partly a return to lower numbers. Much of the census of birds relies on a lot of projections and estimates and assumptions.

I hear and see a lot of birds but I live along the river. Not to change the subject but this spring I didn’t hear the frogs like I usually do.

I have about a dozen bullfrogs around my as-yet uncleaned pool this year. But, I don't remember going through the period where peepers made a racke this year, nor have I spotted the bright green tree frogs in my shrubs. It's possible the very low temps in both of the last winters wiped them out. It may be changing our zone, which is truly ironic considering the global warming trend.

 

[LilBit]

I haven't heard birdsong since I left Chapel Hill.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I haven't heard birdsong since I left Chapel Hill.

I remember when I moved from Arkansas to Albuquerque in 2006. It was kind of jarring to only hear doves and sparrows. Endlessly sparrows, which always are squabbling.

When I moved to Alaska, I missed the sounds of crickets so much, my uncles sent me some. I'll never forget that kindness.

 

[belamyi]

It seems that birds are moving to cities too... 57% in 40 years in European rural areas...

Les poblacions d'ocells de zones agrícoles cauen un 57 % en 40 anys a Europa

Un estudi amb participació del CREAF i l'ICO ha determinat una disminució d'un 25 % de les poblacions d'ocells d'Europa i d'un 57 % dels ocells agrícoles.

beteve.cat

meanwhile, in New Downtown BCN...

El Parc de les Glòries es converteix en un oasi per a desenes d'espècies d'ocells

Les observacions d'ornitòlegs han permès registrar una setantena de tipus d'aus diferents, algunes de ben rares d'observar enmig de la ciutat.

beteve.cat

Ocells de Barcelona: veïns quasi invisibles per a molts ciutadans | betevé

La diversitat d'espècies d'aus que hi ha a Barcelona és molt gran. Convé deixar-se sorprendre i canviar la manera de relacionar-nos amb l'entorn.

beteve.cat

Over 80 species...

Més de 80 espècies d'aus nien a la ciutat

Quins ocells viuen a Barcelona? T'expliquem els principals ocells que trobem a la ciutat, quins hi són durant tot l'any i quins emmigren durant l'hivern.

beteve.cat

La Sagrada Família es converteix en refugi de biodiversitat | betevé

La plaça de la Sagrada Família i el llac de la plaça de Gaudí es convertiran en refugis de biodiversitat per afavorir la nidificació d'aus.

beteve.cat

Identifying birdsing through QR in the mountain range forest area of the city.

Codis QR per identificar el cant dels ocells del Parc Natural de Collserola | betevé

El consorci del parc vol apropar a la ciutadania el centenar d'espècies d'ocells que hi ha, animals clau de la biodiversitat del parc.

beteve.cat

 

[Araucaria]

There are plenty of birds around where I live. There are mockingbirds, blue jays, grackles, cardinals, mourning doves, and the non-native collared doves. There is one mockingbird in particular that starts his songs with the sharp chirps which sound just like that of a cockatiel. I wonder if he copied the song of a cockatiel I used to have. Then he's go on and sing his usual varied repertoire. We also have flocks of screeching, fast-flying quaker/monk parrots and black-headed conures. And sometimes a hawk will come around.

One big change over the years is that now there are lots of normally aquatic birds in the neighborhood, which used not to be here. It is now common to see flocks of about 20 white ibises eating grub on the front lawns, sometimes with an occasional cattle egret eager to catch any insects the ibises disturb. Every once in a while a great white egret will come around looking for lizards. And sometimes a blue heron or wood stork will come around, but they're usually closer to the lakes around here. There are ospreys around the lakes, and you'll sometimes hear the cry of limpkins during the night. And of course, there are plenty of muscovy ducks that come around to get fed.