I’ve kept my birdfeeders full, put out water for them, kept many thorny bushes I’d rather remove bc the songbirds love to nest in them and I am still seeing a decline. Not in the number of total birds, but each year the diversity goes down. Less songbirds, woodpeckers and hummingbirds, more cowbirds, more blackbirds. It’s alarming.

I realize this is just my backyard, but it’s wierd seeing a mass extinction just…play out. Right in front of me.

America hates communism so much they couldn’t even bother leaning Mao’s biggest mistake.

They also hate science. Good luck.

I was just saying to my wife yesterday that I’ve been seeing a fraction of the wildlife I was seeing just last year. I used to see foxes and coyotes every time I went out, and I’ve only seen maybe 3 this year. Many of the birds that would be abundant are simply not there.

Even when looking back at photos we took a decade ago, the diversity in birds was incredible no matter where you went. Now, only geese, gulls, and a few common birds here and there.

Reading that article makes me incredibly sad. I can’t imagine a world without the songs of birds filling the air.

Cats, both domestic and feral kill between 500 million and 4 billion per year. More people need to keep bells on their cats if they let them outdoors to give birds a chance.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-kill-more-one-billion-birds-each-year

We are fortunate enough to have a large bank barn that has been a barn swallow nesting ground for years. Although we use the top floor and seal it off, we leave a gate open for the swallows in the ground level every year. It’s a joy to see 50+ of them on the telephone line in late summer.

This year our flock is significantly smaller, and two of them didn’t make it. Hopefully just a one-year anomaly, but deep down I doubt it.

I hope its all geese. Fuck geese