Where Have All The Birds Gone?

The Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory reports that......

“It has been a disappointing, slow-paced week for us at Cabot Head, straining our eyes and ears to detect the sparse birds, with very little success.” Their banding totals being but about a third of their normal volume, my own less definitive observations have be even more startling. They say that “It is not a deficiency in our senses, then, missing secretive and quiet birds, but a mere absence, objectively reflected in very few birds captured in the nets.”

Here somewhat south of the peninsular in the Chatsworth area my normal steady influx of various birds to our forested hideaway and window feeders the absence of birds is both remarkable and concerning. We all know that in certain weather conditions our visitors will go hide for a bit until things are more to their liking and there are seasonal changes to those we see at various times of the year but in 20 years of enjoying our daily visitors at this location I do not recall it ever being so devoid of our feather friends for so long. What is going on, is it climate change, local conditions, migration pattern changes or what?

Up until around a month or two ago the daily visitors to our feeder included a multitude of Downy & Hairy Woodpeckers (at least 6 or 8 individuals) many Chickadees (estimated more than 10) and several Grosbeaks and Cardinals with a selection of finches dropping by a little less often but seen quite often. The mixed bush that crowds the house nearly always had birds fluttering around making their presence know even if not seen when hiding in the leaves, the activity rarely diminished from early dawn to fading dusk.

Now all I see is ONE Downy and ONE Hairy woodpecker and possibly a couple of Chickadees, even the Doves that always sat in the apple tree occasionally coming to sit on the top of the feeder to see what all the fuss was about have disappeared. The one female Grosbeak who always attacked her reflection in the window glass and the car mirror seems to have found another attraction and left that 'other bird' in peace.

As I said before the difference from 'normal' is very obvious and rather concerning, I miss our feathered friends, they are so much more entertaining to watch than that bloody TV which seems to be the very poor alternative!

I hope they return soon........

 New data..... 
Not directly related to the local 'temporary?' loss of visitors but....
Over the past half-century, North America has lost more than a quarter of its entire bird population, or around 3 billion birds. "We saw this tremendous net loss across the entire bird community," it's a 30% loss in the total number of breeding birds." The results show that more than 90% of the loss can be attributed to just a dozen bird families, including sparrows, warblers, blackbirds and finches. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/762090471/north-america-has-lost-3-billion-birds-scientists-say