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Bird numbers plunge in U.S. and Canada with people to blame
reuters ^

Posted on 09/19/2019 7:58:43 PM PDT by Java4Jay

From grasslands to seashores to forests and backyards, birds are disappearing at an alarming rate in the United States and Canada, with a 29% population drop since 1970 and a net loss of about 2.9 billion birds, scientists said on Thursday.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 5g; birds; carrierwaves; cats; celltowers; crazycatladies; crazycatmen; crazyoldmoggiemen; reuters; scares; scaretactics; solarpower; toxoplasmagondii; turbines; wildlife
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To: damper99
I agree crows are a smart bird.

Very entertaining bird.

We have one that loves to get into everything, like an 8 week puppy, with wings!

Our resident crow can say HI Crow!

He bows (?) after feeding a few treats, and says "crow".

Spends all day with his siblings/buddies, then flies directly into the garage to his nightly roost.

181 posted on 09/20/2019 10:30:51 AM PDT by going hot (happiness is a momma deuce)
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To: BlueLancer
Wow. That's interesting behavior for a bird like a cardinal, at least to me. I know they will eat insects but cat kibble? And the fact they work cooperatively like that. I really miss the birds that used to come around. As I said had numerous pairs of cardinal. From what I understand they're very territorial.
182 posted on 09/20/2019 10:35:37 AM PDT by jmacusa ("If wisdom is not the Lord, what is wisdom?)
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To: Jamestown1630
we’ve lost far more baby birds to birds - crows, particular

I mentioned my chickadee bird house above. Last summer a family successfully nested in it and I watched the babies fledge throughout the morning and afternoon. In the afternoon after I thought all the babies had gone, I watched as a blue jay stuck his head into the nest box until I scared him away. Two days later when I went out to clean out the box, I found a fifth baby that was dead by having its eyes pecked out by that damn jay. They are now on my assassination list along with the sparrows, grackles and starlings......

183 posted on 09/20/2019 10:55:59 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Last summer my buddy's wife collected over 56 monarch eggs from the small milkweed patch she has in their back yard. She raised them in a nice insect cage I made for her then she tagged their wings prior to releasing them.

Apparently this year she had many more than last year and gave the caterpillars out to many of her garden club friends...........She tagged those too.

184 posted on 09/20/2019 10:59:16 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: Hot Tabasco

How kind! :)


185 posted on 09/20/2019 11:05:04 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.~Alfred Austin)
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To: damper99

No, I meant that it’s illegal to take one for a pet. They’re included in the Migratory Bird Act.


186 posted on 09/20/2019 11:09:57 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it")
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To: Java4Jay

I can’t concentrate on reading this because of the cacophony of tweeting outside my open door.


187 posted on 09/20/2019 11:23:08 AM PDT by faucetman (Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts)
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To: Karl Spooner

Yikes! Imagine that happening in an area where there’s a lot of dry vegetation! Or right next to a busy roadway, like the turbines down in Atlantic City.


188 posted on 09/20/2019 11:40:51 AM PDT by twyn1
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To: damper99
when I was a kid my neighbor had a pet one

My cousin grew up in California and he had one when he was a teenager. It would follow him to school each day then meet him when he got out of school and follow him home.

He had it for several years until it probably got interested in female crows and left. Jon said he would occasionally see it in the neighborhood......

189 posted on 09/20/2019 11:59:33 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: bert
When I first started building nesting boxes for the chickadees I used the standard directions for the front access hole. The first box that had a nest in it, the birds were chased off by starlings that kept trying to get in. Another house kept being taken over by the damn house sparrows. On that house I installed a trap door that was fixed on the inside and when a sparrow entered the box, it would set off the trap that would then seal the entrance hole. I'd then get a net and put it over the house then release the sparrow into the net then kill it.

The trap was successful but I stopped using it when I discovered a chickadee dead inside the box.

So I removed the front of the box and replaced it with another that had a smaller entrance hole that only the chickadees could enter. That solved the problem with the sparrows.........

I found the best way to deal with the sparrows is with a .177 pellet rifle as they feast on the bird seed on the ground under the bird feeder.......Same with the grackles who travel in flocks and will occasionally find my feeder and chase the song birds way......

As for the shot sparrows, there is a feral cat around my house who hides in bushes on the back of the house behind me. I call her my "retriever" cat since within 5 minutes of a successful sparrow kill, she comes running out to pick it up and take it away........

As for the shot grackles, she sniffs them then turns and walks away. That's weird, since they would be a bigger meal. Maybe they just stink............

Since I have been shooting the house sparrows, I have noticed a tremendous increase in the numbers of purple finches and house finches........

190 posted on 09/20/2019 12:18:20 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: gundog
Saw the first Nighthawk I’ve seen in years,

I haven't seen one in years but knowing their nesting habits, I can understand why. I used to see them when I lived in Detroit since they would nest on the flat roofed buildings that had gravel spread over the tar covering. Out here in the subs, there are very few of those types of buildings that are using tar and gravel

191 posted on 09/20/2019 12:27:12 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: txnativegop
I live in S.E. Michigan and hadn't seen any orioles in decades until two years ago at my house. I know they are here since my sister had a number of them at her house and my friend and his wife have them coming to there feeder.

So two years ago I bought and set up an oriole feeder off my back deck and within two weeks a pair showed up and started feeding off it. I was ecstatic.....

They came again last year and this year there were maybe 3 pair coming to the feeder.........

I had to take the feeder down about two weeks ago since it was being taken over by bald faced hornets........Not a problem tho since this is the time of year the orioles migrate back to south America....

192 posted on 09/20/2019 12:33:35 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: Lurker
The Sandhill Cranes are back in our area in fine numbers.

Don't know where you live but I had never seen a sand hill crane in my life until a few years ago when I was pheasant hunting up in the thumb area of Michigan.

We heard a honking noise way up in the sky and we just figured it was a flock of geese heading south. So when we looked up, by gosh it was a flock of cranes..........Never saw any since.

193 posted on 09/20/2019 12:40:44 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
I've lived here in S.E. Michigan since 1972 after growing up in northern Michigan. The only time I had ever seen a Blue Bird was maybe back in the early 1990's at a local golf course. To me that was a thrill since I thought they were going extinct here in this state.

That changed back in 2013 when my high school in northern Michigan had a 45 year class reunion. I spent that weekend at a friend's house who lived out in the country on 40 acres and he had a field and valley behind his house. I saw blue birds flying all over the place! At the back of his yard he had a fence post row and each one had a blue bird house on it. I asked him about their occupancy and he said that typically each year half the houses are being used by the blue birds.

As a side note, he called me two days ago and I asked him how the deer population around his house was. He said there's a 10 pointer and a 6 pointer and a few does that he is constantly seeing out in the field.

Then he went into a rant on how the G-damn deer once again destroyed his vegetable garden and the raccoons kept getting his corn.......LOL!

I once asked him why he doesn't shoot the deer from his back deck. Unfortunately Bill had a tough time in Vietnam and he has no desire to shoot a firearm again. So what he does is grant permission to friends to hunt his various properties and they in turn share the venison with him............

194 posted on 09/20/2019 1:02:50 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I'm in the cleaning business.......I launder money)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Cornell is my favorite site for bird stuff:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/


195 posted on 09/20/2019 4:01:01 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it")
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To: Hot Tabasco
I've got a Monster Buck I've been watching all season. He's a BEAST, but I fear the guys that hunt our land will get him with a bow before I can shimmy up my tree stand! I called DIBS though, so I'm sure they'll respect that. NOT! This picture is from my front porch facing West. He came to nibble some Alfalfa. It's a poor quality photo, but you can still see how lovely he would look, mounted over my fireplace. :)


196 posted on 09/20/2019 4:10:39 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.~Alfred Austin)
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To: Jamestown1630

It’s the best site anywhere on the web for bird info and knowledge. Their eBird app is just amazing...a true birder’s social network.


197 posted on 09/20/2019 4:14:51 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Hot Tabasco
Nature: 'Red in Tooth and Claw'.
198 posted on 09/20/2019 4:18:43 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it")
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To: Hot Tabasco

Yeah, we had killdeer nesting on top of 3 story flat roofs in Florida. The only nighthawk I’ve seen on the ground in Oregon wasn’t on s nest.


199 posted on 09/20/2019 4:20:50 PM PDT by gundog ( Hail to the Chief, bitches!)
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To: Hot Tabasco
The Merced National Wildlife Refuge in Central California is an amazing place to see Sandhill Cranes. I went there early last Spring on a guided Audubon outing and we saw a huge number of cranes on the ground and in the air. Amazing birds.
The Merced National Wildlife Refuge encompasses 10,262 acres of wetlands, native grasslands, vernal pools, and riparian areas in California. It was established in 1951 under the Lea Act to attract wintering waterfowl from adjacent farmland where their foraging was causing crop damage. In the last few decades, changes in agricultural practices and refuge management have reduced these wildlife/crop issues. The refuge plays host to the largest wintering populations of lesser sandhill cranes and Ross's geese within the Pacific Flyway. Each autumn over 20,000 cranes and 60,000 arctic nesting geese terminate their annual migrations from Alaska and Canada to make the refuge home for six months. Here they mingle with thousands of other visiting waterfowl, waterbirds and shorebirds making the refuge a true winter phenomenon.
If you are ever on the west coast in winter, it is a wonderful place to visit. You can head up the Central Valley and stop at many more National Wildlife Refuges and see more birds than you ever dreamed of.
200 posted on 09/20/2019 4:20:51 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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