Where Are The Birds?

The other day, the one day last week that was not cold, dark and rainy, I went for a long walk as much for exercise as for seeing what birds were around. I went to my usual patch, a linear park not far from me called Patriots Path. 

Patriots Path (Margo D. Beller)

After more than an hour of walking and listening to jays, robins, cardinals, catbirds, Carolina wrens and many other of the more common birds of the area, I was on my way back to the car when I was stopped by a woman walking her dog. "Are you looking for birds?" she asked, looking at my binoculars.

This has happened before, and I wondered if she was going to tell me about seeing some strange bird she couldn't identify. But no. What she said was, "Have you noticed there are fewer birds? Is something environmental happening to them?"

I wasn't sure by "environmental" whether she meant chemicals killing birds, which is certainly a major hazzard. So are cats, both those domestic ones allowed to roam outdoors by their owners and the feral ones I sometimes see passing through my yard.  

To her I blamed the weather, specifically Tropical Storm Ophelia and other storms that have blown through the eastern United States. When Ophelia was going up the coast, the winds were mainly out of the east. If a bird was trying to head south, I said, it would likely go west to avoid the headwinds. "The midwest is probably seeing a bumper crop of birds," I said.

She seemed reassured and thanked me.

A potential bird hazzard, if allowed outside.
(Margo D. Beller)

After I got home I thought about our conversation. Besides chemicals and cats there is the possibility of birds being blown into trees by high winds. Or hit by cars as they fly low across the road (robins and sparrows are prone to this, I've found). 

Then I found this article, which gave me another perspective - a hurricane - Lee - so strong the birds were blown across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, where "common" birds I find daily in my travels are "rarities" over there. Lee, a category 5 storm, blew hard along the East Coast, and I expected to see reports of birds showing up in places where they are normally not found.

That happened with flamingos after Hurricane Idalia, when the pink birds associated with Florida and the tropics started being reported in Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio. One area's "common" is another's "rarity," even within the United States. But I never expected birds to be blown so far to the east by Hurricane Lee.

So are there fewer birds? Depends on where you go. Back in my area I have found lots of the more common birds and, once in a while, a migrant bird passing through on its way to its southern wintering grounds. But that is because I have taken myself outside to look for them. I don't usually go birding in the rain. I don't even put out feeders in the rain. And we've had a ton of rain lately.

The rain-swollen Whippany River along Patriots Path.
(Margo D. Beller)

Maybe the woman I spoke to sees fewer birds now than before because she is out more often with her dog in all types of weather and has more of a basis of comparison. Maybe what she sees confirms what Audubon has warned about the decline in U.S. birds.   

Where are all the birds? I have to believe they are still out there. You and I just have to go find them.

Breakfast With the Birds

It is 32 degrees F at first light. Sitting on my enclosed porch I can see some frost on the neighbor's roof. In my coat, hat and gloves, a blanket on my knees and a large cup of hot coffee in my hands, I do not feel the cold. It is early Sunday morning and I am enjoying a time of peace while the washing machine works inside, behind the closed back door.

I have put out feeders and now I have breakfast with the birds.

Carolina wren at feeder. (Margo D. Beller)

Things start slowly on a Sunday, especially on a cold morning. No leaf blowers, no barking dogs, no shouting children, perhaps one or two people jogging or walking dogs. I take note of what birds I can see or hear as I rest from my week's labors. 

Two goldfinches, now in their winter brown feathers and the male with just a hint of yellow at his throat.

Larger house finches and house sparrows.

A redbellied woodpecker with his brilliant red crown.

Smaller downy woodpeckers, the male with a bit of red on the back of his head.

Blackcapped chickadees, tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches. All fly to the feeder, grab a seed and take off for a safe place to break the seed apart and eat what's within.

Not at the feeders but flying around the yard are juncos. As winter wears on these dark winter visitors will start coming to the feeders. For now, they glean what they can from around the yard.

A Carolina wren sings from various places around the yard, then investigates both seed feeders. 

Male redbellied woodpecker (Margo D. Beller)

A male cardinal calls from the pear tree, watches as the smaller birds come to the house feeder, then flies to the ground to pick at what is dropped, as the squirrels will soon do. This male doesn't seem to like the feeder but his browner mate is not as skittish. She flies to the feeder, shoos away the smaller birds there, has a few seeds and flies off.

Two larger birds fly a few backyards away, American crows. Had they been hawks, such as the Cooper's hawk, and closer the little birds would've flown to avoid the predators. MH always says the hawks have to eat, too. I understand that, but I don't want my feeders to be involved.

One bird not at the house feeder this morning, at least not right now, is the blue jay. It will come to the house feeder, scarf up a lot of seeds and then fly off to digest them, only to return for more. The force of their leaving makes the old feeder swing wildly, and I fear it dropping to the ground and finally breaking apart. So I am glad the jays have not come by while I'm here.

At this time of year, when I am no longer distracted by chasing migrant birds, it is easy to feel depressed and forgotten. There is less daylight. The majority of garden chores are done. Younger neighbors are wrapped up in their families. Older people like me are just part of the scenery, like the birds, and barely noticed. It is hard for me to get going some mornings.

Female cardinal (Margo D. Beller)

During this year of coronavirus, these feelings are intensified because of another element - fear. Older people are often shunted aside. Now they can be told it is for their own good. You give them "special hours" to shop because they are "vulnerable" to this virus. Most of us have longstanding conditions where exposure to the virus would put us in the hospital. It is safer staying home. Those of us with jobs can be "attached" to the world without being in it. But many seniors don't have that.

With the cold comes deprivation. It would be harder for the birds to survive without help from people like me putting out the feeders. Many people nowadays do not have that safety net. Unlike many of the birds, many of us won't be with our family groups this winter.

Sitting and watching the birds, the sun peeks through the clouds. I can see its arc is now short enough that the sun rises just past my neighbor's roof. Were it not cloudy I'd have the sun full on my face for a longer time until it rose above the porch window. Still, I close my eyes and time seems to stand still.

But time does not stand still. When the clouds move back in I can see a black cat in my backyard neighbor's yard, heading away from mine. The birds were not perturbed - I have frequently found this well-kept house cat curled up in the sun on my flood wall as the birds eat - but the squirrels rush up the trees and start their alarmed barking. This is when there is a sudden frenzy of birds at the feeder, eating as if there is no tomorrow.  

Cooper's hawk, a common backyard predator. Not today.
(Margo D. Beller)

I don't know what goes through a bird's brain. I can make some guesses. I can guess the suet is being ignored because it is not that cold (the porch temperature rose at least 5 degrees during the time I was out) and it is more important to cache seeds for later, when other food might not be available. I can guess the birds "understand" the sounds of an alarmed squirrel mean danger and eat so they can have the fat in them to take off quickly and fly far if need be.

But when the squirrels and birds calm down, I find myself agitated. I am not free as a bird.

So I leave the porch before the dogs, leaf blowers and other disturbances start for my warm kitchen to tend to the laundry, consider my other chores and wait for MH to wake and come downstairs. Like the birds, he will be fed.

I look at the clock and see I was outside for over an hour. Time I'll never get back.  

It is too easy for people like me to feel depressed, shut in, fearful and forgotten. The birds don't have these "advanced" human feelings, thank goodness. Sitting on my cold porch and watching them on a Sunday morning helps me forget mine.

Keeping the Cats Out

I like cats. This is important for me to say because of what I will be writing.

I like cats, just not in my backyard.

We all know people can get very attached to their pets, which is why I have to wonder why some of my neighbors here in suburbia persist in putting their cats outside where they can stalk and possibly kill the birds visiting my feeders.

Outdoor cats (RE Berg-Andersson)

Mind you, I have no objections to cats taking out those blasted digging chipmunks. I have seen a cat in the neighbor's yard chowing down on one. When done an American crow, like the turkey vulture a member of Nature's cleanup crew, took the remains away.

But cats and bird feeders don't mix.

The other day was the third time in two weeks I had to chase a cat away from my yard. Each time it was a different cat and not the first time they've visited. One short-haired tabby looked mean and pregnant. One long-haired, black-eyed cat was mangy. The third, a black short-hair with green eyes, wore a collar. When I chase this one off it always runs across my street toward the homes that abut the community garden.

These cat visits seem to come in cycles, but there is no denying that as the weather chills I am putting out more feeders and these are drawing more birds and those - both four-legged and winged - that can kill them.

When I mentioned these cat visits on a birding Facebook page the comments - mostly anti-cat - rained down. The one woman who wondered how we can consider ourselves animal lovers because we are pro-bird and anti-cat was forced to delete her comment, unfortunately. Cats have been venerated for millennia. There are cat-lover societies in the U.S. and abroad. There is even a group I recently found of people who paint nothing but cats. I have always found it sadly ironic that in one of the best birding areas in the U.S., if not the world - Cape May, NJ - there is a large feral cat community that is rigorously protected even as other residents fear the effect on the many migratory birds that pass through, particularly in spring and fall.

Some friends have cats and I like to watch them walk around the room. All these cats are rigorously kept indoors. They move the same way as their bigger cousins the lions, tigers and jaguars. Their personalities are as different as people. Some are skittish, some disdainful, some friendly and almost dog-like. One brother-in-law once had a cat that came when called. She would bring "gifts" of dead mice to the front step, sometimes into the house.

This may be one reason why people put out cats: It may go back to our rural past when cats were let out to kill mice and other vermin hiding and eating in our barns. Have you ever wondered why many old bookstores have cats? (I know, I'm dating myself here.) Besides entertaining customers (guilty) they kill the mice that could destroy inventory.

Cat on car (RE Berg-Andersson)

Another brother-in-law would always say, "If I have an animal it has to work." So the cats would be let out (luckily, they ignored the feeder birds) until he lost so many of them to predators or automobiles he finally started keeping his cats inside.

Many towns hire animal control companies that will come, lure and trap the cat and take it to a place where it can be adopted or put down if it doesn't have a tag identifying an owner. Too many unspayed loose cats, like the mean short-hair in my yard, could have too many kittens and before you know it you have a real mess.

Perhaps the owner of the black cat had it spayed or neutered. That doesn't make it right to let it go outside on a cold day to show up in my yard and take an interest in a visiting cardinal. This isn't a rural area. Maybe cats are smarter than the dead dogs, deer and other animals I've seen on the roadside, but maybe not, particularly at night.

I can only stay vigilant while hoping any cat I chase off isn't hit by a speeding car. As I said, I like cats.

Bearing With More Trouble

On Sept. 27, six months to the day after the last incident, I was making supper. It was a Sunday early evening, people were enjoying their backyards with their children or taking a late afternoon walk in the sunshine.

I turned around to see if any cardinals were at the house feeder. I planned to take it in by 6:30 pm ET, 30 minutes from that moment, as I have been ever since a bear came into my yard overnight and destroyed one of my feeder poles trying to get to the sunflower seed.

Well, there was no feeder. I cursed, ran out into the backyard and on the next street, ambling northward, was a black bear, about as big as the one MH and I saw from our car on Old Mine Road in the ridges and forests of Sussex County, NJ.

Old Mine Road bear (RE Berg-Andersson)

This time, the bruin had ignored the sock and the cage-enclosed feeder that were filled with thistle put out for what had become a huge flock of goldfinches. It went for the old house feeder. In pulling it the bear had taken off the wrought-iron arm, too, and MH thinks when it fell it spooked the bear off. The house feeder, which hadn't had that much seed in it at the time, was on the ground but unscathed.

After the last attack, I had taken in the feeders for a while and then it was summer and I put a hanging basket on the remaining pole. Eventually, I had gotten a new feeder pole to replace the broken one. Around Labor Day I had started putting out seed. The dry weather conditions made it hard for birds to find food unless they found my feeder, which many of them did.

So did the bear.

Rosebreasted grosbeak on house feeder,
when the pole still had two arms (RE Berg-Andersson)

I have no idea if this was the same one because I didn't see the bear six months before. That attack was overnight. This one was during daylight, when there were lots of people outside, as I said. While I called 911 to alert the police, my neighbor was atop his grandchildren's playground setup, watching. He gave me a thumb's up. His son told me he had seen the bear rip off the feeder arm and then lope off through my backyard, my backyard neighbor's yard and then to the street. A squad SUV drove up that street after the bear but whether it was confronted or just followed into the next town, I do not know.

My brother-in-law the naturalist in rural NH told me he always waits until the snow falls and the bears go into their dens before he hangs feeders - even if that's in December. His feeders are always inside by April 1.

But he is in rural NH. The migrants have long left there. I was feeding a lot of cardinals, goldfinches and chickadees (along with more annoying house sparrows) because seeding plants were dying and there were no bugs because of the drought. Where I live, it might not snow until February. And my last attack had been before April 1.

What to do?

Predators have always been a problem. Accipiters -- Cooper's hawks and sharp-shinned hawks -- and redtailed hawks often haunt the yard. Lately, a cat has been loitering. (It is not feral because it is neat and has a flea collar, but it is not from my street and I have seen it run off through yards across the street and over to another side street, where its owner may live. It doesn't let me get close enough to see any ID tag. I do not understand the old adage about putting out the cat. You don't do that for dogs.)

Cooper's hawk atop feeder (Margo D. Beller)

But I can go outside and chase off a hawk or a cat. When I ran out and saw the bear I realized that had I turned around and run out sooner we'd have been face to face. What would I have done? Would I have been as stupid as the time I went out to chase off a buck in my yard and then quickly backed way when it put its head down intending to charge? In my anger, perhaps.

There are people who love bears so much they would like nothing better than for my neighbors and me to tear down our houses and let the bears roam free, unhunted. That isn't going to happen. Yes, there are houses in areas where they never should've been built, but people are in there now and bears are dangerous. I favor a bear hunt, as I do the annual deer hunt for the same reason - restoring something of a balance.

After a day or so inside, I put the house feeder on the remaining pole arm and put the thistle sock on the other pole. Not having seed outside plus a strong northerly wind seems to have decreased the number of sparrows and goldfinches dramatically to more manageable numbers, thus allowing more of the birds I like to get to the feeders. (We've also had a significant rainfall.)

Is putting out feeders foolishness or an act of faith? I want to feed birds. But I must now be extremely vigilant, at least until a hard winter cold comes. Fool me twice, shame on me. It may not be six months until the next bear encounter.