Where are the birds?

[mrbb]

no shortage of birds here, they will suck my feeders empty in a few hours after filling them, have all sorts here all day long, and they start chirping about an hour and a half before sun rise, I'd be happier if they started a LOT later, as a few dozen sleep in a tree about 15 ft from my bedroom window, and when its still dark out and they all fire up, that NICE chirping grows old pretty fast!
then add in a dozen or two crows that show up[ at fist light and seem to HAVE to crow non stop for 30 minutes , letting everything know there here, and again, that wonderful nice nature sounds deal goes out the window!
I'm about ready to cut the tree down and break out the shotgun to try and get them to go roost else where HAHA!
my own fault for feeding them, so, I know and for now there safe!

 

[LVJ76]

Don't touch a dead bird without gloves.

Well in a couple if weeks, we will be touching some dead birds, doves that is, dove season is almost here. Time for bacon wrapped dove kabobs, wife will be happy.

 

[cornshank]

Plenty here , so many , I even flipped one this morning.

 

[Weaver93]

no shortage of birds here, they will suck my feeders empty in a few hours after filling them, have all sorts here all day long, and they start chirping about an hour and a half before sun rise, I'd be happier if they started a LOT later, as a few dozen sleep in a tree about 15 ft from my bedroom window, and when its still dark out and they all fire up, that NICE chirping grows old pretty fast!
then add in a dozen or two crows that show up[ at fist light and seem to HAVE to crow non stop for 30 minutes , letting everything know there here, and again, that wonderful nice nature sounds deal goes out the window!
I'm about ready to cut the tree down and break out the shotgun to try and get them to go roost else where HAHA!
my own fault for feeding them, so, I know and for now there safe!

It was that way here until about a week or so ago. Wife asked me this morning what I thought. Few hummingbirds darting around, but that's it.

 

[levers4life]

House cats take a serious toll. Robins got hit real hard. Doves too... ground feeders. If any one hunts on my place that's the one rule I have. If you see a cat, kill it. If it blows your hunt, you can come back.

 

[LkeAF]

Plenty here , so many , I even flipped one this morning.

Same here. Seems to have something to do with the number of people around. More people = more flipped.

 

[orkan]

Seriously, we do not have hardly any birds around at all. We always had tons of robins, blue birds, finches, orioles, crows, starlings you name it we-had them. There are no birds chirping singing at daybreak! Its eerily quiet except for cicadas, crickets etc. This seemed to happen over the past 2-3 weeks. Bird flu is in our area and we wonder if it really wiped everything out! We haven't seen a wild turkey in over a month. We took down feeders in January as precaution but looks like it had no effect.

When you don't have birds around, it is weird and scary quiet! Anybody else have this going on?

We don't get to put millions of tons of herbicide and pesticide on the planets surface... and expect nothing to come of it.

 

[birddog 68]

I did see 9 geese and a few gulls at the lake last evening. This morning I seen 5 turkeys so they are around but the 3 robins I spotted earlier today were social distancing while looking for worms so that's probably helping. None of the birds were wearing masks.
On a serious note I'm sure if they were hit hard in your area muddy, they will rebound from other areas not hit.

 

[Weaver93]

We don't get to put millions of tons of herbicide and pesticide on the planets surface... and expect nothing to come of it.

Friend of mine lives in a developed area with 3-4 acre lots. Both neighbors on either side brought in lawn care companies this year and he lost four of his six bee hives.

 

[mrbb]

all kidding aside, there have been a lot of cases and concerns about birds disappearing or dying in the USA and NO one know's why

I know my state back last yr came out and asked folks to STOP feeding them,
as they felt gathering birds about feeders would kill more birds, due to it possibly be something that spreads from one bird to another, and having lots of them intermix at feeders was thought to be a big concern and cause of birds dying!
I know I slowed down and then stopped feeding birds here for a few weeks
but I was finding birds DEAD after I stopped feeding them, not before!

due to,
I think they became to use my place as a major food source, and relied on it to get by!(also why I have a LOT of birds here)
and once I stopped, they were starving to death literally! not able to find enough food other wise, or many of them didn;t!

so, I went back to feeding, as always,
and since then, I have only found 1 dead bird, a morning dove, and NOT sure what or why it died, but that was the only one over the past 12+ months now!

But I do see a big drop is populations of a lot of species, grouse, the state game bird in PA< is about GONE< just like the pheasant, there not surviving or thriving at all on there own,
woodcock, again, there MIA in this state as to some yrs back,
bat's about gone here, Dragon fly's about gone
things that seem to be thriving though are more on the pest side of things, TICKS< Mosquito's , NO shortage of them any more
and just a decade or two ago, a TICK was never something we ever seen here, yet now, there every where!
and for those that don;t think its a big deal
well, hate to bust anyone's bubble, but the mosquito has killed more humans than another critter on this planet!

Loose so many BAT's due to White nose illness, IMO< has been a huge reason why skeeters are in such high numbers here now!

I think a lot of state game dept's and wildlife agencies need to get off there asses and start getting way more active in saving the species we have, and figuring out what is causing things to disappear!
after all its there JOB to do so!
just don;t try telling them that, they will argue its not!
been there done that In PA< with Pheasants, where they blamed everyone BUT themselves for them going extinct in the wilds of PA! too much pride to be able to admit they made a mistake(same can be said about how they let the forest get destroyed by over browsing from deer) now, grouse, wood cock, are almost gone, and still they don;t take any credit for things going bye bye!
funny how that works, when your JOB is about protecting wild life and wild life goes missing, yet NOT there job according to them!

 

[david g ranes]

all kidding aside, there have been a lot of cases and concerns about birds disappearing or dying in the USA and NO one know's why

I know my state back last yr came out and asked folks to STOP feeding them,
as they felt gathering birds about feeders would kill more birds, due to it possibly be something that spreads from one bird to another, and having lots of them intermix at feeders was thought to be a big concern and cause of birds dying!
I know I slowed down and then stopped feeding birds here for a few weeks
but I was finding birds DEAD after I stopped feeding them, not before!

due to,
I think they became to use my place as a major food source, and relied on it to get by!(also why I have a LOT of birds here)
and once I stopped, they were starving to death literally! not able to find enough food other wise, or many of them didn;t!

so, I went back to feeding, as always,
and since then, I have only found 1 dead bird, a morning dove, and NOT sure what or why it died, but that was the only one over the past 12+ months now!

But I do see a big drop is populations of a lot of species, grouse, the state game bird in PA< is about GONE< just like the pheasant, there not surviving or thriving at all on there own,
woodcock, again, there MIA in this state as to some yrs back,
bat's about gone here, Dragon fly's about gone
things that seem to be thriving though are more on the pest side of things, TICKS< Mosquito's , NO shortage of them any more
and just a decade or two ago, a TICK was never something we ever seen here, yet now, there every where!
and for those that don;t think its a big deal
well, hate to bust anyone's bubble, but the mosquito has killed more humans than another critter on this planet!

Loose so many BAT's due to White nose illness, IMO< has been a huge reason why skeeters are in such high numbers here now!

I think a lot of state game dept's and wildlife agencies need to get off there asses and start getting way more active in saving the species we have, and figuring out what is causing things to disappear!
after all its there JOB to do so!
just don;t try telling them that, they will argue its not!
been there done that In PA< with Pheasants, where they blamed everyone BUT themselves for them going extinct in the wilds of PA! too much pride to be able to admit they made a mistake(same can be said about how they let the forest get destroyed by over browsing from deer) now, grouse, wood cock, are almost gone, and still they don;t take any credit for things going bye bye!
funny how that works, when your JOB is about protecting wild life and wild life goes missing, yet NOT there job according to them!

Another major issue is due prices are non existent so every coon opossum and coyote ravage every nest the come across. David

 

[trubkir17]

My wife and I were discussing that this morning. We had all kinds of birds until about a week ago and now all we see are magpies and crows. I haven't even heard our resident goose population for a while, but the geese should start moving down from the north soon.

 

[mrbb]

Another major issue is due prices are non existent so every coon opossum and coyote ravage every nest the come across. David

well in a balanced environment all things level out, I have NO shortage of coons and skunks and foxes, yotes and such here, yet have a TON of all wildlife, minus NOW grouse and woodcock(used to have tons of them too)
any place that is having larger issue's with coons and foxes and such, will only last so long, a once the abundance of food ends, so do the numbers of predators, as without food, they cannot survive!
the bigger issue I think is when I hear folks complain(and not saying you are)
' is its just due to folks start to see a coyotes and predators more often near home and such, and they automatically THINK< there are LOTS of them all over
when the fact typically is, there isn;t any more of them, your seeing them more due to there having to come into towns and cities more to find food, as natural foods ain;t there like they once were
then add into the fact how much land every yr is lost to development!
people move into where things are, see them more and then complain! making ti seem like there are way more of them than maybe there really is!
if we can be honest, wildlife has learned to adapt to humans WAY better than humans have learned to adapt to them

just look at the diets of wildlife and how its changed over the yrs! and how they learned that where humans are there is MORE food, designer landscaping is like salad bars to a lot of wild critters
Deer, one of the biggest targeted hunted critter out there, was a browser by nature
and NOW< decades of food plotters , and HOW poorly forest have been managed for have good steady reliable browse ALL YR,
and the majority of deer now, shrive off grazing over browsing!
total change in how they survive
as I said, wildlife has adapted better to us than we do to them!

another big problem is loosing so many hunters and trappers
our numbers are at an all time low, and when huntable game disappears I don;t blame numbers of hunters to drop as well

PA was ONCE a top 5 pheasant state, and now we have basically ZERO wild pheasants, that's a BIG difference! and why I say game depts really need to step up there game and react quicker to issues NOT try and solve things After things are too far gone, which seems to be the way they work 99% of the time, , lots of room for improvement in there jobs IMO!

 

[mrbb]

My wife and I were discussing that this morning. We had all kinds of birds until about a week ago and now all we see are magpies and crows. I haven't even heard our resident goose population for a while, but the geese should start moving down from the north soon.

that right there is a concern, not just that you haven;'t seen them in a while, but the fact so many migratory birds DON"T migrate any more
it should be a red flag to all when this happens,
its indicating the balance in nature is off some how!