[Cyclopath]

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/birds-shrinking-climate-change-small-birds-shrinking-faster

[RumiDude]

Thanks for sharing this. It's really really interesting. I hope to read more about this on possible further study. Rumi

[Ski]

^ somewhere on this website is a link to an article that details more than a 50% decline in global bird populations over the last half a century or so.

[treeswarper]

It is much more quiet, bird wise here. Don't know if the late spring caused it or whether it is the bigger picture. The few robins I've seen look thin. The only birds that seem to be common this year are the doves and the quail. The latter decimated my lettuce seedlings!

[thunderhead]

Interesting. While warming is a plausible explanation.... the correlation between species being smaller in warmer climates is indeed very strong... adapting in a statistically significant way to a small change in temperature concentrated mainly in the last few decades is pretty thin. I suspect that more typical causes are at play here... habitat destruction, food loss, toxins we have added to the environment, all strike me as being more likely culprits.

[cdestroyer]

treeswarper wrote"It is much more quiet, bird wise here" it is near the same here and I suspect that the avian bird flu may have played a role in decimating wild bird populations world wide. A few of the expected birds have shown up in the last couple of days but not in the numbers that had been previously.

[Cyclopath]

[thunderhead]

You shouldnt trust my opinion. You should think through the evidence and math and the logic for yourself. In this case i see the evidence is that some birds are getting smaller. Seems to me its quite a leap to try to then pin down specific causes when there are so many (mostly human caused mind you) to choose from.

[Ski]

^ I'm not seeing smaller birds. I am seeing almost NO birds, other than the three resident Western Scrub Jays who hang out in my back yard and two Mourning Doves who "coo coo" all day long atop the power poles out in the alley in back and a few Starlings and the usual Northwestern Crows. I have not seen a Black-capped Chickadee in my back yard for two weeks. I think there were all of maybe two common House Finches here this last week. Are the scrub jays running the others off? That hasn't been the case the last 8-10 years they've been here. Very weird. My back yard is "bird paradise" - lots of black sunflower seeds, water, lots of options for quick escape, and NO CATS. I need to remember to call the local Audubon people and ask them if they have any ideas about what's going on.

[Ski]

... as an aside, while mowing the back lawn a week ago, in between dumping bags I was listening to a Pileated Woodpecker drilling and calling for a girlfriend up in a very alive Douglas Fir on the parcel to my immediate south. Didn't note his size, as I was unable to spot him, but he definitely sounded healthy.