Where have the birds gone? (1 Viewer)

I live on the edge of a forested area in a housing development north of Montreal Quebec, Canada and have been feeding the birds in my backyard for years. I normally get a variety of visitors - goldfinch, cardinals, blue jays, juncos, white-breasted nuthatch, downy woodpeckers chickadees, mourning doves...all year long - summer and winter. However, since about mid-September, everything came to a screeching halt. Even the squirrels have disappeared. We have had an exceptionally warm Fall, but now the temperature has returned to 'normal' but still no return of my feathered friends.

Where before I was filling my feeders every few days, since September I have filled them once. I get the occasional chickadee and woodpecker, but every other species seems to have disappeared.

I am wondering if others are experiencing the same issue and if anyone has an explanation.

Birds are subject to occasional, apparently random movements, it could be to do with the failure of one of their natural food sources around you.

When we moved in to our home here in Russia, the first winter we were feeding, Siskin was by far the commonest bird at the feeder. Then, they disappeared, totally and as yet, have not returned in such numbers.

How hard a winter you're having and the availability of natural food sources will probably be playing a part?


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andyadcock said:

Birds are subject to occasional, apparently random movements, it could be to do with the failure of one of their natural food sources around you.

When we moved in to our home here in Russia, the first winter we were feeding, Siskin was by far the commonest bird at the feeder. Then, they disappeared, totally and as yet, have not returned in such numbers.

How hard a winter you're having and the availability of natural food sources will probably be playing a part?


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Good points, Andy. Interestingly, it was the exact opposite all across the northeast US earlier in the fall. People were recording much fewer birds than usual at their feeders, but it wasn't due to food shortages. The summer and early fall were very wet, resulting in tons of natural food available and a reduced need for feeders. I have found this to be true for me, as I've seen a lot more birds than usual in the weedy and brushy fields at my local reservoir.

I definitely agree that natural food availability is a major part of birds' movements.

I'm in Dallas, Texas and I noticed the drop off around the end of August. It's been a decline everyday since then at my feeders. I was going thru about a pound a day (sometimes more) of sunflower hearts, and several suet cakes a day. I had many feeders placed around in my front and back yard, along with 2 bird baths.

Now I'm barely using a half cup of seeds a day if I'm lucky, sometimes not at all. The suet is about a cake a week now. It's hard to say on the suet because I have several different kinds stuffed into 2 feeders. I bought a new squirrel proof peanut feeder and it's barely even been noticed. The bird baths are used more than anything.

I've read a few other places that people are experiencing the same slow down. I've been peeking at a lot of the bird feeder cams on Youtube and some are real active up north, but a lot down south seem to be dead as well. I see you're in Canada so I'm a bit surprised you're having the same experience as I am. I have been frantically searching the web trying to figure out what I could possibly be doing wrong, and I keep reading the same thing over and over, about the fall harvest and plentiful food everywhere for wildlife. Now we have had some good cold fronts come thru the past couple of weeks, and now the birds are showing up in the mornings a lot, really early. A slow decline begins after the first comers, but come noon time, we warm up sunny and 70 degrees outside, then my feeders are dead again, pretty much for the rest of the day. There are a few stragglers that come thru during the day for a seed or two, or maybe a bit of suet, lots of water drinkers and bathers, but nothing like it was before August.

I hope they come back soon. I used to have a steady stream all day long. Anytime I wanted to go sit on the front porch or look out my back window from the couch, there were always a few birds around. Now after the morning rush is over, unless you have nothing else to do, you may see a bird on the feeder if you sit and wait an hour. I can hear them in the distance or if they are in my trees, but I cant see them at the feeders.

Winter is not yet upon us, though the weather has cooled. With the warm fall we had their food supply has definitely been extended, but we have had a few hard frosts which should have eliminated most of the bugs etc... No snow cover yet though.

Someone suggested to me that a predator might have moved into the territory, but can that really affect the entire bird population in an area? We have had a Cooper’s Hawk in the area for many years and that didn’t seem to make a difference to the birds.

I'm not sure about the predator. I did have what looked like a Gray Hawk a month or so ago. There were birds at the feeders, and I heard this loud clang, and I ran to the porch and it was trying to get into a squirrel proof suet feeder cage and was sitting on top of it. I went out and shooed it away. I think I've seen it a few times since then, not really positive though. Either way, it didnt stop the birds at the time, and they were right back to feeding an hour or so later. So it could've been a fluke, and it was just passing by.

I was just sitting on my front porch and the bird chatter was incredible. There was a huge flock of Grackles that showed up in pecan tree across the street from me. Then I could hear Carolina Chickadees, Northern Mockingbirds, Cardinals, lots of Blue Jays, just a big huge mix. But none of them at my feeders. Nothing at all.

Someone suggested to me that a predator might have moved into the territory, but can that really affect the entire bird population in an area?

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A predator moving in and completely clearing an area of even one prey species is rare, but for it to have such an effect on a whole set of species as different as jays, woodpeckers, doves, small passerines and squirrels is impossible.

I find the number of birds visiting my feeders to be a bit random - sometimes for no easily explicable reason. I've had months go by with no activity and others where I've had to put up extra feeders to accommodate the rush. I can tie some peaks in to breeding and feeding youngsters (with usually a dip afterwards for moulting, etc). However, even in the middle of winter, the whole lot will vanish for a while without any observable reason. They obviously have one though and it does save a minor fortune in feed.

A predator hanging out near the feeders would have an effect by keeping birds from venturing out, not so much eating all of them. That said, generally speaking that is something that usually is a thing for a day or two, not long term.

Just a thought!...you may have a "near" new neighbour that is putting out a lot of food, and they have for the time being been distracted from their normal (your) source? This happened to me a few years ago, all of a sudden the double digit numbers that I used to attract trickled down to just a couple or so.....no loyalty I'm afraid!

I am experiencing the exact same thing! I live in Western NY, and have been feeding birds at my current residence for 3 solid years, day in and day out. Up until late August (ironically just after the eclipse), my various feeders have been inundated with tons of varieties of birds. (Bluebirds, nuthatches, titmice, chickadees, hairy, downy (and even pileated!) woodpeckers, finches, cardinals, grosbeaks, orioles, hummingbirds, various sparrow varieties, etc. etc!) While I know a few from that category migrate, those that do not have nearly all but vanished from my feeding stations, though a few woodpeckers and chickadees are still around. I have not made any changes to my yard or the seed, suet, etc. that I provide. (I, too, thought maybe it was something I’d inadvertently done, or that maybe I’d purchased a bad bag of seed.) I keep my feeders clean and weather protected as much as I am able to. We occasionally have a “sparrow hawk” swoop into the yard, but not very often, and they aren’t really in abundance here. No prowling cats or other predators, and no neighbors who have started feeding birds. Absolutely nothing has changed in or around our yard, or of those yards that are around us either. This is why I have been so stumped. It seems more of a larger environmental issue.... The more I research online, the more I am hearing of this same scenario in other places, too, like Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, as well as your locations of Texas and Canada. I did stumble onto a blog post today where commenters from 2009 were experiencing the exact same issue of birds disappearing, and it was the same time of year that we all started noticing it! Someone from Cornell said that if what we are experiencing was due to some sort of disaster, we’d be seeing carcasses. While that is true, one cannot deny that something is definitely going on, because even with the abundance of fruits, nuts and berries in our yard this year (Cornell also says it was a mast year), the birds (and even squirrels) certainly haven’t been seen feasting on any of it! We have dried grapes still left hanging on their vines, apples still hanging on the bare tree branches, and many nuts were all over the ground for days until the deer finally ate most of them. It truly seems like something mysteriously whisked all the birds away over night!