[Birdy Trish]

Hi, I have received the question below. Wondered if anyone else has noticed a drop in birds visiting. I know that there is natural food in the countryside for birds now but not sure this explains the decline of her birds visiting. Has anyone heard of this report about a drastic decline in bird numbers?

I am not sure who to ask but in the last week we have noticed that all our small birds seem to have disappeared ie blue tits, chaffinch, robins, sparrows, ywllow hammers, nut hatch. The black birds and the thrush's seem to be down in numbers. I live in a small village in the lake district a very rural area and can't account for why we are not seeing these small birds. Has any one else reported a problem. I have also read that this is happening more frequently worldwide and a report recently published shows bird decline /extinction is going to get worse every year. . Is this true

[Capercaillie71]

There are real concerns about long term declines in some birds (particularly woodland and farmland specialists). However, these are long-term declines (over many years) and not something that would happen in the space of a week. Your suggestion about the availability of natural food is probably correct in this case.

It's worth noting that although we hear a lot about declining songbirds in the UK, it is not all species that are affected and most 'garden' birds are stable or increasing in numbers. Overall songbird numbers are probably much the same now as they were 30 years ago.

[FlushUnderFoot]

Did you also notice a large spike in the population of bird-eating snakes in your area in the past week? I bet good old predator-prey population dynamics are to blame on this one.

[Apodemus]

When I lived there, the Lake District wasn't exactly hooching with bird-eating snakes.

I would go and look in your neighbours' gardens, they've probably installed industrial scale feeding stations.

Mike

[FlushUnderFoot]

When I lived there, the Lake District wasn't exactly hooching with bird-eating snakes.

forgive my poor attempt at humor..

[Apodemus]

Nothing to forgive, it's a pity you couldn't hear me laughing. :)

[clydeboy]

On a similar note.
I was at Scarborough in yorkshire for 2 weeks recently and before going I was looking forward to seeing and photographing the house martins which were nesting all along the hotels on our walk to the beach last year. alas, this year, not a one, anywhere.
I also was surprised that in 2 weeks I didn't see a single house sparrow or starling either.
I'm not sure if this means there are less this year than last, as I wasn't looking last year to make a comparison, but I thought seeing none this year was strange.

Maybe they were on THEIR holidays..