Lived in my house here in Wis. for 43 years. Everything is the same here. Can't say as I have noticed any difference.

I have seen fluctuation over the years and I always thought it was the West Nile virus. The crow population was wiped out about 15+ years ago and they slowly returned but not in the numbers seen earlier.

The whip-poor-wills and quail were abundant in the early 80's and then slowly disappeared. Houses were built on some of the adjoining land and with that came the cats. Several were found at the foxes den on my property. Yes, foxes can take out cats.

I am not sure why people let their cats roam around.

We see more birds than ever around our house, but the trees we planted more than a decade ago are large and maturing nicely. Plus about 2-3 years ago, my wife put up a hummingbird feeder in the back yard and a regular bird feeder on the side yard.

I can remember thousands of crows flying north to south, a steady stream of them for days. Then the decided to stay in Riverton Wyo (aka by some of us as Crow Town), the city had folks shooting them with shotguns and they hauled thousands of them to the dump. Have not seen many crows since.

My city now has a no kill shelter which means cats aren't culled if they couldn't be adopted out. We now have to catch the feral cats and pay to have them fixed and then we release them where they were caught. Since the idiots on out city counsel passed our no kill legislation five years ago I haven't seen a single quail, pheasant, duck since. Small bird populations are down as i rarely see little birds either. Only bird i see regularly are crows. We used to have ducks nesting everywhere to the point they were and I haven't seen a single duck since that legislation passed. The only real signs of birds I see is the occasionally pile of feathers found on the ground. They did a study in my little city and our feral cat population is over 20000 feral cats for a town with about 100000 folks. Yeah as far as I am concerned cats are an invasive species. I wish I had it in me to get the pellet gun out and to thin the herd a bit.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mutedblade:
I think bird populations are in decline due to the amount of feral cats. Smitshonian Article

I used to live in a town that had a hellacious feral cat problem and there wasn't a bird for miles because of it.[/QUOTE

Feral cats are a rarity in my neighborhood. Coyotes must have taken care of them.

Not at my house. I have everything from robins to flocks of wild turkeys to large water birds and even bald eagles.

No shortage of birds at my house either.

This is the first year I have kept my hummingbird feeder out for the winter. They feed on it pretty regular. It seems rare for them to still be here, but I like them.

Loads of turkey, blue jays, and such.

Cheers~

We have coyotes, don't see any cats out of yards, and quite a few songbirds.

Maybe they decided to go to Vegas to get cowboy hats?

I haven't seen any falloff around my place. I don't feed them but my roommate does. Now and then I find a carcass, presumably the work of one of the neighborhood cats, but overall the numbers seem to be pretty consistent.

I was just having this discussion with a friend a few days ago. When I was a child all you saw here were sparrows. I can't remember the last time I saw one, it's been so long. On a trip to Alaska I noticed eagles there appear like sparrow used to be here. The primary birds we see here now are bluejays, robins and cardinals. We do, however see a large numbers of birds of prey such as hawks and owls.

No, I hadn't noticed this. What is this suppposed to indicate? Is this some precursor to the Apocalypse? Sounds kinda nutty to me.

Para, I was just quizzing members across the country on their observations. In my area, bird populations seemed to have declined. Others have posted that birds in their area have remained constant.

One thing to consider is, although some species have remained numerous, other species have gone to rock bottom numbers.

An article from Scientific American on what I've been discussing.
https://www.scientificamerican...birds-have-vanished/

All 200 acres of Marzyland is a bird sanctuary.

I have found this thread very interesting, I also thank Sunset_Va for the link.

We have more than ever here in Southeast Michigan. I put feeders out and see everything native around here; even gold finches, Orioles, ginkos, cardinals and more. We seem to be low on hummingbirds this year. I put about 8 feeders full every 3 days. I even had the deer come by at 4:00 AM twice and lick the seed clean outta there (October). That’s when I pulled the handouts off line for the season.

Lots of birdies here. Green Jays, cardinals, orioles, vermilion flycatchers, and lots of little finches. Here's a few cardinals eating supper, and they don't seem to be bothered by either me or the neighbors dog in the background. That dog is timid though, seems to be scared off by the sound of chambering a round.

I live in So. NH. Have not noticed any decline in birds other than the normal cyclical variations. I still see 4-5 different Cardinal pairs, have Goldfinches, Purple Finches, Nuthatches,Titmouse, Woodpeckers, etc. at my feeders. Occasionally, we lose a bird to a hawk or so, but they are all back. The visitors made their yearly appearance: Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Louisiana Wood Thrush, Carolina Wren, and Scarlet Tanager.

quote:

Originally posted by TexasScrub:
Lots of birdies here. Green Jays, cardinals, orioles, vermilion flycatchers, and lots of little finches. Here's a few cardinals eating supper, and they don't seem to be bothered by either me or the neighbors dog in the background. That dog is timid though, seems to be scared off by the sound of chambering a round.

Beautiful Cardinals, Virginia's State Bird. I have not seen a Cardinal at my birdfeeder in 2 months, even though one feeder is full of their diet, sunflower seeds.

No finches either.

quote:

Originally posted by Ed Fowler:
I have found this thread very interesting, I also thank Sunset_Va for the link.

You are welcome.

Some members concur with my observations, most however say bird numbers are the same.