OK. My house is in a very quiet neighborhood, and heavily treed. All along one side of my back yard I have berry bushes, which the birds love to eat. There are very few neighborhood cats - maybe 2, and I never see them hanging around. There has been no new construction, no change of environment that I can see. No new noises, smells, - hell, my neighbors don’t even have new cars.
However - the last two Springs, my bushes and trees (especially the berry bushes) have been filled with birds nests. Last year, I had about 6 Robin’s nests, 2 Blue Jay’s, maybe 4 Grackle’s nests, I think a Dove’s nest, and several Sparrow’s nests. They even built 3 nests on my actual house (2 Blue Jay’s, one Sparrow’s).
This year - no nests. None at all. Nada.
As far as I can tell, nothing in the environment has changed. The berry bushes have berries, the birds are not eating them. The only nests in the trees are the annual squirrel’s nests.
Did something happen this year birdwise? Did migration patterns change due to weather? Could something else have changed in my environment that I am not realizing here? Overall, I have noticed less birds than ever, except the Mourning Doves, which seem as dense as before.
Although there is continuing devastation to songbird habitat all through the United States, your situation would seem to be from something else. Such a dramatic decline in population may be the result of nocturnal feral cats or other predators. If you had an extremely short winter perhaps the birds did not return all the way north to your location. Maybe Brachy will know.
I think the most likely explanation is feral cats…they are very wily & you are unlikely to see them. If there has been no dramatic weather change in your area, or your neighbors haven’t been spraying the trees with something noxious, that’s the only thing I can think of.
Domestic cats can wreak havoc on bird populations. My two hunter cats now have bells on their collars.
Heavy applications of pesticides in the area - not necessarily your house, but perhaps on the neighbors’ yards (birds do not recoginze fences as property lines but as ‘places to lands’)
Predators have moved into the area - birds (hawks by day, owls by night), raccoons, snakes - any of those can take a toll on birds and upset the nesting cycle
More feral cats than you have noticed.
Mourning doves, European (house) sparrows, and starlings are very aggressive birds, and can drive off and/or kill nesting parents. We have a bird feeder outside my office, and most of the visitors are mourning doves - for the dove in general being a symbol of ‘peace’, it has a nasty affressive attitude to anything it considers interlopers.
Something happened during the migration. Lots of layover habitat is being destroyed, large towers can contribute to bird kills (one cell tower near the office resulted in the deaths and severe injuries of more than 500 warblers in one night), and illegal hunting still goes on in different parts of the country and other countries. (I took a call a week ago about a guy shooting hawks and blue jays “because they were in his yard” (both are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act).
I’ll think of more after my conference call. Hope this may shed some light on your mystery.
I thought that bells had been shown to be ineffective in reducing the kill rate of cats? Sadly my source is the Discovery channel AKA the loch ness monster channel.
While there have been long-term declines in songbird populations in the U.S., this wouldn’t explain the very sudden change in your immediate area. I have not heard of any severe weather or other large-scale disruptions that could account for the change. A more local problem, except perhaps for pesticides, is unlikely to account for it, since birds would probably come in from elsewhere. (Where are you, BTW? I forget.)
My best guess is that some predator that you are unaware of has taken up residence nearby. This could be a feral cat, or perhaps a Kestrel or Sparrowhawk. An owl is also a possibility.
My parents have a cat, Casey, who when we moved into our new house back in '87 was killing upwards of 15 animals a day, about a third of them birds. He was amazing, an absolute killing machine; the back porch looked like a level of “Doom.” He killed mice, moles, squirrels (he’s a huge cat) birds, snakes, chipmunks, you name it. Then he would dissect them, God only knows why. Or he brought them into the house, often alive. Once I walked in the door after work and a two-foot snake (Two feet long. Not a snake with two feet.) slithered by me into the living room.
“There appears to be a big snake in the living room.” I said.
Anyway, we put a bell on his collar. That was the end of it. Not one more kill (including, remarkably enough, no snakes, which is funny because they don’t have ears.) So, we saved 5-15 animals a day just on our end. But make sure it’s a bell that rings easy. Cheap ones sometimes have a ball inside that gets stuck easily.
To the OP: Anth, it’s probably a predator. I’d guess an owl.
RickJay, snakes do have ears, they just don’t have an external ear flap or ear canal. They only have one earbone which is connected to the jawbone and so they only hear low frequency sounds (usually vibrations picked up from body contact with the ground).
I don’t know the frequency range of the bell, but they are usually high pitched, so it does seem odd. Perhaps the cat started walking with a different rhythm to try to avoid the bell ringing & this gave the snakes enough vibration to avoid it.
I wasn’t necessarily suggesting that the predators have actually eaten all the birds, or destroyed their nests, just that the birds are quite aware that muggers may be hanging around your place (maybe a kestrel or a sparrowhawk has a nest nearby) and have just taken their business elsewhere.
As for Mourning Doves? I dunno, it could be because they are very fast flyers compared to the other birds you mentioned, and would be able to avoid a Sparrowhawk. (Although a Kestrel could probably catch them.) On the other hand, they’re also a bit dumb and may not know any better.
Have you asked your neighbors if they’ve used any sprays or anything that would deter nesting birds?
screech-owl’s suggestion that perhaps migratory patterns have been changed is interesting. Maybe you could call the local universtity extension, or an orthinological (did I mangle that spelling) society & ask.
I really think the hunter cats’ blood lust has been quelled by collar & bells. Daphne & Darryl only leave 13 bloody bird bits per day for me to step on, instead of the previous 93 bloody bird bits.) Not to mention mice, snakes, bats and baby bunnies.)
[hijack]Did I hear somewhere that Australia was considering a ban/restriction on domestic cats because of their effect on indigenous wildlife?[/hijack]
It’s possible my neighbor to the North of me used sprays or something. He’s a mean old coot who wishes mightily every day that we were in a Homes Association, so he could start writing tickets and putting leins on my house. AFAIK, based on his demeanor, I would not be surprised if he was leaving out poison. However…I really don’t know. We have a lot of hawks and falcons here in Kansas in this area, and some owls. It is possible that a couple big ones have moved to the area. I heard a hawk’s cry really loud a couple nights ago…but they are all around all the time, so I’m not sure.
I really miss the baby birds.
Thank you all for trying to help me figure this out.
My vote is also for a local phenomena, like a predator (Sharp-shinned or other woodland hawk, owl, cat). Some of the birds that you mentioned are likely yearround residents, like the Blue Jay, and they may have moved their nesting area to a slightly different location to avoid encounters of the unfit kind. Your house may have become a “no-fly zone.”
Poisons are a trickier situation. As screech-owl says, native birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and it is a MAJOR no-no to off them without the proper depredation permits (because it is way to easy to kill a lot of birds indiscriminantly). However, since you’re hearing birds (and especially hawks, due to the bioaccumulation implication), it seems less likely that poisons are involved and again points toward a predator in the area (the hawk you heard?).
Carina42 and RickJay - I’m glad to see you’ve had success with bells. I’ve been trying to convince my Mom to bell her darn cat - gonna show her this thread.
My money is on lawn care services poisoning them indirectly. I haven’t seen a robin near my house in ages. No predators (although our crows like a little fresh squirrel now and then) and I keep my eyes open for them.
dropzone, Ward Stone, NY’s state vet pathologist, recently noted that there were higher amounts of pesticides (such as from the lawn-care business and homeowner use) in birds sent in for West Nile virus surveillance than he had expected. I don’t know if he attributed any direct deaths from them, but he did note their presence. (I should also point out that he is known to have a bit of an “agenda” regarding pesticides, but I can’t really judge if it biases his work - I’m not that familiar with it. I’m assuming his numbers are on target.)
None of my neighbors use lawn care services, but they may do some self treatments. I do neither.
It is possible that the birds were fed, but someone stopped. Not among my immediate neighbors, though. Maybe I should start. In fact - maybe I should try to attract as many doves and pigeons as possible - to piss off my neighbor to the North! Now that would be fun!
