Where Are All The Song Birds?

[Greene's Basin Girl]

There haven't been any song birds coming to our feeders in months. All I see is an occasional blue jay or crow. I haven't seen any chickadees, nuthatches, tufted titmice, etc. Are there others who aren't seeing many birds?

[RLW]

Everyone we talk to also say the same thing. We are getting to see more and more of them, but not at the feeders. For some reason it almost depends on the weather conditions. When it gets colder like into to the upper twenties they appear more. It is just as if the bugs have been killed off or gone into some type of a hibernation and the birds need some other source of food. Does any of that make any sense???

[Greene's Basin Girl]

Originally Posted by RLW

Everyone we talk to also say the same thing. We are getting to see more and more of them, but not at the feeders. For some reason it almost depends on the weather conditions. When it gets colder like into to the upper twenties they appear more. It is just as if the bugs have been killed off or gone into some type of a hibernation and the birds need some other source of food. Does any of that make any sense???

Right after I wrote about not seeing any birds at my feeder a nuthatch flew in for some seed. Hopefully there will be many more birds to come.

[C Tucker]

There are so many crows now. They appear in flocks of six-seven minimum. Being carnivores, I figured the crows had eaten the eggs and young of the songbirds. We have seen so few in the last two years.

[MDoug]

Originally Posted by C Tucker

There are so many crows now. They appear in flocks of six-seven minimum. Being carnivores, I figured the crows had eaten the eggs and young of the songbirds. We have seen so few in the last two years.

I saw a crow or raven decapitate an adult blue jay near our camp on Bear Island. Other small birds began quite a noise, as if in protest.

[RLW]

We are starting to see more of them coming to the feeder. They come 3 or 4 about mid day, but not every day. The gold Finch and Nut Hatch along with the Tit-Mouse.
As the other writer stated about the crows we also have been seeing a lot of them here on Alton Mountain.

[Greene's Basin Girl]

In the past i have always had many many crows right along with many many songbirds.

[dragonfly03246]

We mostly get the Hairy, Red-breasted and Downy Woodpeckers and a few Nuthatch. Last weekend we started getting the finches back along with the Chick-a-dees. Hopefully they'll stick around.

I also think changing the food occasionally helps. They seem to be really picky for free food.

[dpg]

It's winter, they're smart, they all went to Orlando!

[ApS]

Originally Posted by C Tucker

There are so many crows now. They appear in flocks of six-seven minimum. Being carnivores, I figured the crows had eaten the eggs and young of the songbirds. We have seen so few in the last two years.

The eggs of songbirds are attacked by other critters, including raccoons, squirrels—even wrens.

Starting this time of year, you can see flocks of crow numbering around two- to three-hundred. When you consider that more than half are their season's youngsters, that's a lot of songbird hatchlings as dinners. Crows also "take" domestic fowl, but up here, that's not so significant a proportion of Crows' diets.

Crows do investigative "fly-bys" past my Black-Capped Chickadee bird house from the first day of Spring: no Chickadees nested this year, and the Crows were few and far between.

Last year, they knew exactly—to the day—when the Black-Capped Chickadee hatchlings were about to depart, and set up a noisy audience. The Chickadee parents weren't fazed, and continued to call—and "act-out"—for the hatchlings to come out. I tossed a stick at the nearest crow, but they all felt unwelcome somehow, and every one departed. I think the hatchlings all made it, but that "gauntlet" of Crows would have been daunting.

It's Nature, but Crows subsist the rest of the year on grubs in the lawns of Suburbs. When lawns dominate to change Forest to Suburbia, the songbirds' demographics will change: Cardinals and "city" Robins move in—our true songbirds move out.

Abutting our acre is a large tract that has a lawnmower running Monday through Friday—then he starts the process all over again on Monday. How many MPG is that?

Lakeside, it would so easy to change lawns to low-growing—and low-maintenance—evergreen shrubs: no fertilizer, no lawn mowing, no runoff—no Town restrictions on height for privacy.

[SIKSUKR]

The lawn police are on the prowl.

[ApS]

We seem to have dodged that bullet: somebody didn't read about our songbirds.

Originally Posted by Green's Basin Girl

There haven't been any song birds coming to our feeders in months. All I see is an occasional blue jay or crow. I haven't seen any chickadees, nuthatches, tufted titmice, etc. Are there others who aren't seeing many birds?

Could it be the presence of feral cats?

An entire country—New Zealand—is weighing a bill to considerably reduce the number of domestic cats.

"...Cats are a globally invasive species. They kill millions of birds each year in Wisconsin alone. Cats feast on endangered North American ground-nesting birds such as the California clapper rail, least tern, and piping plover, any one of which is cuter than a laundry basket full of kittens. A study in the D.C. area a few years ago showed that in some neighborhoods (neighborhoods in which a lot of people who really ought to know better let their beasts roam free), outdoor cats eat basically all juvenile birds as soon as they fledge..."
http://www.slate.com/articles/health...src=most_viral

[Greene's Basin Girl]

Our song birds came back shortly after I wrote that post ( last November ). We have always had cats as our pets. Our cats have always been more interested in chipmunks, voles, etc. They haven't been interested in getting birds. In think if we didn't have the other critters then they would probably go after the birds.

[bclaker]

I saw my first Chickadee of the Winter yesterday.

[ApS]

Originally Posted by Green's Basin Girl

There haven't been any song birds coming to our feeders in months. All I see is an occasional blue jay or crow. I haven't seen any chickadees, nuthatches, tufted titmice, etc. Are there others who aren't seeing many birds?

We haven't had much nesting success at our acre.

Although the authors (below) try to make a case for some mitigation for "tolerant" species, it seems that anthropomorphic noisemaking has had its effect on our songbirds:

"Anthropogenic noise has been implicated as a cause of declines in avian species diversity and densities; however, these patterns are not conclusive because noise has not been uncoupled from the many potential confounding variables that accompany noisy human activities, such as physical alteration of habitat, edge effects, or moving traffic or equipment.

"During the summers of 2005-2007, we isolated noise experimentally through use of natural gas wells with noisy compressors as experimental treatment sites and wells without compressors as control sites.

"Noise significantly reduced nesting species richness; however, species tolerant of nesting in areas with high noise levels benefited from increased nest success due to lower levels of predation. In areas with high amplitudes of anthropogenic noise, predators may be present, but unable to locate nests, or they are in lower densities or absent – thereby benefiting species tolerant of anthropogenic noise through an increase in nest success.

"Species intolerant of noise may suffer two-fold: through exclusion from noisy habitats that may otherwise be suitable, and because they are subject to more natural levels of nest predation when nesting in less noisy habitats. This disparity between the higher nesting success of noise tolerant species and lower nest success of noise intolerant species may further contribute to declines in species richness and diversity in and around human-altered landscapes.
http://citation.allacademic.com/meta...f0ebcde34e7993

Lawnmowers, pile drivers, fireworks, motorcycles, and the newest "switchable" boat muffler laws are taking its toll on particularly our Thrush population.

In Wolfeboro, I haven't heard any of the best Thrush songsters these past two seasons.

(And there are six of them in the Thrush family).

[jrc]

Everything bad is caused by stuff I don't like.

[tis]

It's funny we were talking a couple of days ago, saying we thought we heard more songbirds this summer than in the past.

[Pricestavern]

I have seen more of some species this year than usual (by my observations on Rattlesnake over the last 7 years):
- Kingfishers
- Bald Eagles
- Turkeys(seems NH is filthy with them this time o' year)
- Blue Jays (recently)
- Loons (honestly, it's been a long time when I'd seen so many; maybe as a young lad on Cow Island)

The usual amt. of crows, seagulls, herons, ducks (in general), cormorants.

Fewer chickadees and wrens.

Tough to find any real Summer data, local Audobon counts occur around Christmas.

[SteveA]

here in Gilford we have had lots of Tuffted titmouse, chickadee, white breasted nuthatch, crows by the dozens, and very busy blue jays.

I took these picture this morning, also have some nuthatch pictures from this morning that I haven't edited.

[GTO]

We had a mother and 2 cubs at the bird feeder on our deck last week.

[ApS]

Originally Posted by SteveA

here in Gilford we have had lots of Tuffted titmouse, chickadee, white breasted nuthatch, crows by the dozens, and very busy blue jays.

"Song Birds" usually describes many members of the Passerine- or Thrush- families of Bird-dom: to count Blue Jays, Crows, and White Breasted Nuthatches among them, is a stretch!



We never saw (or heard) the usually-common Yellow-Rumped Warblers this past season: 'glad Tuftonboro came through!

Originally Posted by jrc

Everything bad is caused by stuff I don't like.

I'm working on the case of "songbird nesting success" vs. "cigar smoke", but haven't turned up anything as yet.

[barefootbay]

I would like to know where there are whipoorwills in the Wolfeboro area. I haven't heard one in years. I know they have left for the season but spring is right around the corner. lol