There is a disease affecting small birds south of here, and it may have reached us or affected the birds who live here when they moved south during the migratory season.

Really? That would be pretty awful. I noticed a few birds here today. One bluejay, one sparrow, a mourning dove and a woodpecker. That's it. The dog we sit for went home 2 days ago, so I will notice if things start to pick up. The Robins usually represent the biggest presence in the yard and I have seen one a couple of times, but nowhere near the presence they normally are. Hopefully that will change over the season.

I hadn't really noticed the amount of birds, but I haven't been able to be outside much yet. I did hear last year about that disease and it sounds awful - I hope it's not having that big of an effect. I'll have to try to pay more attention going forward.

:)

Dee

I have dozens of goldfinches and probably more robins than usual. .Catbirds and hummingbirds showed up last week. Red winged blackbirds, cardinals…titmouse and chickadees way less than previous years. i have a lot of birdfeeders.

I don't use bird feeders. I used to but we stopped more for the fact that they were being targeted by hawks. Now we just fill birdbaths and I try to plant shrubs with berries and any plant that attracts birds and pollinators.

I did see a pair of mourning doves today, a woodpecker and a blue jay. Still only see a glimpse of a robin here and there. Not a lot of sparrows either which is unusual and I only see goldfinches when certain perennials and annuals are going to seed. I saw a half dozen grackles in the yard yesterday - but wow - usually you get a whole flock of them at one time.

Today i had an oriole drinking from my hummingbird feeder. We do not see hawks in the yard very often.

Habitat loss has resulted in the loss of 3.5 billion (with a B) birds in North America over the last 30 years. (bird loss study, (Times article)). (something like 40% of all the birds that were around in 1970) The decline in insect populations is primarily responsible. The most important thing you can do is increase the number of native plant species in your yard to provide the caterpillar populations that are essential to nesting success (it takes 8000 caterpillars to fledge a nest of bluebirds or chickadees). Most non-native plants are essentially useless for native pollinators and other insects, and therefore for native songbirds.

We've seen a significant increase in number of species and in nesting success since beginning to convert much of our property back to natives. It's been quite remarkable.

Doug Tallamy's book "Bringing Nature Home" is a great starting point for understanding this problem.

https://grownativemass.org is a great resource for how to get started. Every little bit helps!

It sounds like you have a big property that had a lot of invasives on it and I can imagine getting rid of those are making a big difference too. Our situation is a little different. We have a small 1/4 acre property that is more urban than suburban and have added a lot of natives. We just haven't seen a corresponding increase in caterpillars or birds or nests. We haven't always had as much success establishing natives. But, I still have a lot of natives and keep adding more.

You might enjoy this talk that my wife helped organize, given last week by Claudia Thompson, founder of Grow Native Massachusetts. She describes the transformation of her 7000 sf lot in Cambridge into a wildlife haven (and a beautiful garden to boot), and provides lots of practical steps one can take.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsugzZP3k6Q

We have about two acres that abuts protected and conservation land. It was a moonscape dotted with invasives when we moved in a decade ago. It's coming along nicely now, but we too have killed plenty of plants along the way. Still a long way to go.

@rwiegand Thanks for the tip! I will definitely watch it.

We heard a pileated yesterday. we've had lots of temporaries passing thru like robins but last year we had red winged blackbirds at our feeders in early spring before much food was available. I was told our bluebirds in winter are not the same as summer. Wild turkeys are strutting around. Barn swallows and phoebes are back. a hawk patrols our boggy front property. A weeping crab with tiny crab apples is popular. Small birds are nest building. my husband thought he had removed all the invasive Russian olives but one is choking out our small forsythia. need tomcheck out that video. Thanks.

every spring I have to temporarily remove my front door wreath (grapevine base) during nesting season to avoid the messy birds nest the robin's make. This year, no robins have showed up at my front door or on the lawns. seems very strange.

This weekend i found two baby robins on the ground, both killed by other birds. So sad.

I have seen a couple of robins pulling hay out of the vegetable beds, so they must be building a nest somewhere. I also saw a robin's egg on the ground, sadly. It's been so windy this spring, I guess that is not surprising. I've heard cardinals and saw one that looked like a young bird. I had a pair of mourning doves, which I love, but they seem to have disappeared. That happens to me every year and I wonder why. I think I now have a pair of catbirds, I saw them flying into my climbing roses the other day. And I'm seeing the birdbaths getting pretty dirty after a day, so birds must be using them, I think I'm busy with other things and not paying as much attention as usual.