Birds In Trouble

Not long ago on the Internet, I read a post from a bird lover who was concerned that fewer songbirds were visiting his feeders than had visited in previous years. He expressed concern that this might be a result of the mysterious deaths of birds from some unknown cause last summer.

A flurry of responses to his post seemed to amplify his observation. They expressed special alarm for cardinals and chickadees.

I have to admit I was concerned about their observations. However, since we no longer maintain bird feeders at our home during the winter, I couldn't say whether there were fewer birds around than previously.

We had given up maintaining bird feeders for a couple of reasons. A major one is that the gathering of birds attracted uncontrolled cats. We often found cat tracks in the snow near our feeders, and we occasionally found bloody piles of feathers where cats had killed birds. I felt guilty that our attempts to help birds during the winter and our enjoyment of seeing them resulted in their deaths because of the cats. There ought to be a leash law for cats.

Another reason we gave up feeding the birds was that red squirrels found the bird feed and often got more of it than the birds did. Then, after winter had ended, the squirrels hung around and ate the growing tips off the branches of our large pine trees during the spring. One pine tree actually died and had to be cut down. I suspect the stress of losing its growth tips was a contributing factor.

Anyhow, are there fewer birds than usual? The Christmas bird count conducted by the Audubon Society would suggest that birds are maintaining their numbers. There was not a dramatic increase or decrease in bird numbers observed by the birdwatchers in their count circles.

However, in a "Sounding Board" in a recent issue of "Pennsylvania Outdoor News," the question was posed whether people were witnessing a decline in bird numbers. Observers were about evenly split between those who were seeing fewer birds and those seeing healthy numbers.

Besides ruffed grouse, which are in trouble, wild turkey numbers are experiencing a noticeable decline in many places. The Pennsylvania Game Commission is embarking on a four-year study in four WMAs (not ours) in an effort to determine why this is occurring. This is a study of hen nesting, lifestyle, and disease considerations. You would think such a study would include a moratorium on issuing extra gobbler tags in the spring. Sadly, it does not.