Three Billion birds are gone. And all in just 50 years. It happened in the trees and fields. It happened where there were no longer any trees and where the fields had been treated with pesticides. It happened when a cat left out at night brought home a bird it had killed – as a gift – but in this reckoning it might as well have been in a tiny body bag. It happened without much notice. It happened in our yards, at our offices, along our streets, on our favorite country road. It was happening all around us. But it happened without much of a hue and cry.
There might have been a Fall when you said, “That “V” of geese overhead looks smaller than when I was a child”. But geese have found places to stay without going farther north.
And your cat seldom brings home birds, and then its only one. Its not only roaming domestic cats; its the wild, feral cats. The lower end of the estimate for feral cats in the United States is 65 million. If that number of cats each dropped one bird per year at someone’s doorstep that would surpass the 3 Billion count over the 50 year time frame.
And Dogs are not free of the blame. Ground dwelling birds and their nest are particularly susceptible to dogs. The dogs may catch the bird and will most often eat the eggs if they are in the nest. I’ve seen both of these events happen.
Another ferocious animal that can decimate bird populations are feral pigs. A pig will eat anything, acorns and other nuts, snakes, lizards and other reptiles, young dogs, eggs in ground nests, and birds. Feral pigs are worst in the southeast United States from North Carolina to Texas and Oklahoma. And California has a large population of feral pigs as well. These wild pigs can decimate wildlife populations. They can also severely damage the habitat for birds reducing nesting and breeding area.
These bird deaths can invade your home and office building. Did you hear that thump? It was a bird that thought the sky reflected in your penthouse window was a space to fly through. The bird flew right into the window. Buildings, especially high rise building, end up being death traps for bird. The light of the big cities compound the problems for birds on their historical migration path. Studies by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the University of Michigan, reveal the scope of these issues. The Cornell study named Chicago as the worst city for bird deaths from flying into windows. This is chiefly because the city and its tall buildings, including the tallest in the U.S., is on the historical Mississippi flyway. The flyways are highways in the sky that birds follow on the migrations.
Birds in the United States are in trouble, animals, construction activities, wanton destruction of breeding and nesting area, office buildings, confusion due to lighting; all these are playing a role in the loss of bird populations in the United States.
What will we miss? We will miss the sight of birds wheeling in the air. We will miss their song in our yard, in our city parks, out in the countryside. Insects will be less in control and will feast more freely on our plants and crops. A fictional movie from 1971 played on this idea. The Hellstorm Chronicles, implied that the results of insect populations breeding without any natural check on it and the horrifying results. A loss of birds can result in the loss of a lot more.
What is it that we have lost in the 50 years since 1970? We have lost 3 billion birds. We have lost their song, their beauty and their economic benefit. It has been gradual, but it is real. According to an article in Smithsonian magazine, the loss of 3 billion birds equates to a loss of more than 29% of the bird population in the United States.
Take four quarters out of your pocket and throw one away. Every time you want to buy something for a dollar, you only have 75 cents in your pocket. You go away unsatisfied. That’s where we are heading.
Quoting from To a Skylark, by Percy Shelley.
Hail to thee, Blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
How, knowing this, could we ever let it pass?
- The Cornell study and that of the University of Michigan mentioned about are summarized in an article that may be found at https://www.dezeen.com/2019/04/08/skyscrapers-usa-birds-death-studies/
- Both the article in Dezeen magazine and on the Cornell Lab for Ornithology website present actions that can help stop the decline.
- The Smithsonian article may be found at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/north-america-has-lost-nearly-3-billion-birds-180973178/.
- The art for this article is a modified version of he art on this catastrophic loss of American birds at https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/.
- The entire poem To a Skylark may be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45146/to-a-skylark .
- Sign-up for Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Birds) eNews which may be found https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/enews .