For the past 2 months, we have noticed that there're suddenly no birds or sometimes very few in our yard. We usually have chickadees, titmice, wrens, woodpeckers, bluejays, cardinals, goldfinches and other wild birds. Some of them migrate and some of them will stay for the winter, they never completely disappear for this long in the past 8 years since the feeders were set up. We're in Ashby Massachusetts, Is this something that's been reported elsewhere?
-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Where did all the wild birds go? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter fayZ
- Start date
Hi fayZ and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators. Usually I would say not to worry too much, as there's so much available food in the wider countryside at this time of year but they'll be back shortly when it begins to run out. But my House Sparrow numbers have been dropping and dropping over the last 5 years, until this year I only had about 5 and then suddenly towards the end of August there were none!! They've completely disappeared and taken the Chaffinches with them.
Never has this happened here before. Very sad. I do have other birds, but to lose those is a bit of a disaster.
I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news.
Never has this happened here before. Very sad. I do have other birds, but to lose those is a bit of a disaster.
I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news.
Hello and welcome to the forum, enjoy and all the best.
Hi Delia hi everyone, thanks for the replies and welcomes! I've read that there's a strain of avian flu in New England that killed hundreds of harbor seals, but someone at the Mass Audubon Society said they aren't aware of a major outbreak in my area, it was just a seasonal population gap due to migration and availability of food. I’ve seen what the seasonal gap is like and this is much more prolonged than it's ever been before. BTW we had an unbelievable amount of rain this year and plants are growing like crazy, maybe they just had too much to eat and don't need the feeders. Hopefully they're doing fine and we'll be back to normal soon.
Welcome to a lovely forum!
Has anyone actually found and tested any dead birds? There are far too many cases of ignorant denial when it comes to avian flu, not least because of the consequences.
Cheers
Per
IDidiot
Well-known member
Where I live, in the last year a number of mallards and crows have moved into the lagoon surrounded by mangroves Gulf of Mexico in Florida. The crows initially decimated the population of just about everything. They chased/harassed the osprey, herons and egrets... There is a robust cormorant rookery and I noticed that the group had to violently fight off the crow invasion. The duck invasion (went from 8 or 10 to hundreds of mallards) is due in part because a person two blocks down has obtained and feeds free range chickens. (This is illegal in a congested area and the neighbor has no housing or protection for the chickens.) The ducks eat up a good deal of what's thrown on the sidewalk/roadside for these chickens. Anyway, the game warden finally moved the majority of the ducks.
In observation here I'd say that the additional urbanization of the area caused the crows, and the easier source of food caused the duck invasion.
On the other hand a hurricane and the warmer waters on the coast that brought in flamingos where they never were before in our area and many other areas of the country.
You could be experiencing climate/weather issues, other animal population growth, (perhaps owls or other raptors), a neighbor who has stolen your birds, etc. It is scary to watch these changes.
I hope your babies come back or that you experience new populations of birds arriving!
