STATE OF THE BIRDS: Their Individual and Collective Demise

"May my heart always be open

to little birds who are the secrets of living."

(E.E. Cummings)

Varied Thrush found belly up dead in Codornices Park

How many times have you seen

a dead bird on the ground?

Grisly remains of hapless Gull

Not counting a rotting Gull carcass on the seashore.

Snowy Egret (?) mangled and dead

Perhaps we have all seen evidence

of death and mayhem in the bird world: 

Feathers scattered about
evidencing a kill site
perpetrated by a Raptor

An egg shell lying broken beneath a tree

Even more unusual,
coming upon a delicate, feather-light skull
of some unknown bird species

Unidentified dead bird

Since bird carcasses are small and subject to being scavenged, dragged away, and disintegrating in short time, it's fairly unusual to chance upon a little avian body lying comatose or dead on the ground.

Cormorants convening on guano-splattered rock

So, how many times have you

ever actually seen a dead bird?

All that remains

Individual bird deaths are sad, but expected. All creatures die. But taken as a whole, collective bird deaths have reached an alarming tipping point, casting the metaphor "Canary in a coal mine" as literal interpretation for what it says about humans and our role in causing the mass demise of birds.

Cooper's or Sharp-shinned Hawk dead on sidewalk
(courtesy of David Brotherton)

In the macro scheme, birds perish en masse by the hundreds of thousands, even to the tune of millions of collective deaths year in and year out. In the past half-century, in the United States and Canada alone, 3,000,000,000 breeding birds have perished, with hundreds of "on alert" and "tipping point" populations of species shrinking and in catastrophic decline in imminent danger of outright extinction.

More evidence of predation

From the STATE OF THE BIRDS 2022 (NABCI report)

"Vision for Our Shared Future"

Pelicans in flight

"Birds are telling us

that the health of our nation is at stake.

But the way forward is clear. 

When we help birds thrive,

we sustain the essential lands and waters

\needed for abundant wildlife, resources, and well-being."

North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI)

partners have tweeted:

Oystercatchers roaming the beach

"What affects birds affects us,

and birds are telling us they are in trouble."

(Marshall Johnson, chief conservation officer, National Audubon Society)

Light morph Red-tailed Hawk (?)

"This is not a time to be dismayed.

This is a time for optimism, inclusivity, and action –

the birds will not have it any other way."

(Nikki Belmonte, executive director, American Birding Association)

Killdeer

"Birds are in trouble,

but we all can help bring them back.

Living bird-friendly

makes your home and lifestyle

better for birds and the planet."

(Dr. Scott Sillett, head of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center)

White-crowned Sparrow after a dip in the stream

"Everyone can make a difference to help turn declines around. Everyone with a window can use simple solutions to prevent collisions. Everyone can help green their neighborhood and avoid using pesticides that harm birds. Everyone who lives in a neighborhood can bring the issues and solutions to their community and use their voice to take action."

(Mike Parr, president of American Bird Conservancy)

Help ID this lovely Woodpecker (!)

Only Waterfowl species have succeeded or been helped to thrive by collective funding, policy, action and investments. Does it take hunters to lead the way (?), while in other declining habitats, hundreds of breeding birds are at risk of decline and extinction.

Cormorants gathering by the dozens at Drake's Estero

Imagine a world without

the joy and wonder of birds.

Snowy Egret basking in late afternoon sun

Picture a world bereft of

biodiversity and sustainability.

Magnificent gathering of Shorebirds

Life threatening hazards and perils are numerous, including degraded and loss of habitat; ingestion of plastics, detritus and poisons; abnormal fluctuations in weather; extreme climate events; illegal hunting, poaching and trafficking; dangerous wind turbines and glass buildings.

Song Sparrow

The list goes on and on. Truly, the SORRY & PITIFUL STATE OF THE BIRDS presents a frightening and sad vision, yet remains a hopeful one, too, thanks to the many dedicated organizations involved in the local, regional, national and global conservation projects and restorative efforts of the partnerships involved in NABCI.

Dead Woodpecker

Throughout my many joyful days of birding, observing the activity of living birds, it's always a shock and sad thing to find a dead bird fallen to the ground.

Hawk mystery death in Cascade Creek

I once came upon some kind of Hawk, lying belly-up, gutted, in a rocky ravine above Cascade Falls in Marin County.

Varied Thrush in death repose

Another time, it was a Varied Thrush, neck mangled, found expired in a back area of Codornices Park in Berkeley. 

Ruby-crowned Kinglet found on Indian Rock Avenue

And then, on consecutive days, just blocks apart, I once chanced upon, not one, but two Ruby-crowned Kinglets who had perished, their small, still-fresh corpses lying in the street near the curb.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet placed on bed of leaves

Had anyone else noticed the two little Songbirds? And if so, cared to wonder about the circumstances of their demise?

Death throes brought out the ruby patch

After all, the unnoticed passing of a tiny bird must rate among the most insignificant of events in anyone's life. Well, apart from being fascinated, I cared, and stopped both times to inspect, examine and scrutinize before reverently placing their lifeless bodies on a patch of ground and covering them in a burial shroud of leaves and sticks.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

The frenetic tree and bush hopper is a hard little cuss to pin down – in the sense of being able to appreciate a sustained moment of observation, or being capable of snapping a half-way decent photograph (with only half-way decent equipment).

Mess of feathers presaging the remains of a Great Horned Owl

Owing to the furtive and fast-twitch activity of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, I've managed to accomplish the feat just a couple of times, and certainly never once capturing a good shot of him flaring his ruby soul patch atop his head.

Ratty wind-blown old beach Crow

Long in pursuit of the "perfect" photograph of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, I finally scored! Stinging irony, it's not exactly the way I would have envisioned capturing the birdworthy image.

Dead Band-tailed Pigeon on Tassajara Creek Trail (Mount Diablo SP)

Now, what set of circumstances would have caused two birds of the same feather to die within a day or maybe within an hour of one another and in the same neighborhood? 

R.I.P. my little Varied Thrush friend

The next day, hiking Blue Gum Trail in Tilden Nature Area, I meet Phyllis, an avid birder, and tell her my story. Impressed and stumped, she mulls it over for a few seconds, then suggests they might be casualties of the larger flock flying over – up to millions – and somehow, perhaps, two among them were attacked, taken down, by a small urban Forest Hawk.

Junco death by unknown means

Good a guess as any, I'd say.

Hummingbird found fatally wounded at base of store window

Phyllis also eliminates freezing to death as a cause, since we'd see many more of their frozen bodies pasted to the ground, wouldn't we? Although it did drop to a low of 36, birds only freeze to death when it's below freezing, don't they? And some survive to minus 40, like the hardy cousin, the Golden-crowned Kinglet.

American Robin crash landed

Which spurs the thought:

what if they were flying high overhead

and it was below freezing,

and these two succumbed.

Gulls and other Shorebirds at Point Reyes National Seashore

In this scenario, many more likely would have succumbed, but they fell from the sky in inaccessible and hidden places and/or were quickly eaten by scavenging animals.

Northern Mockingbird

Which begs the question:

why weren't these two Kinglets

snatched up and eaten?

Great Horned Owl mauled on the ground

I'm willing to chalk it all up to being one big coincidence: two birds, same species, found dead in the street near the curb in the same neighborhood within a day of each other.

Second Ruby-crowned Kinglet found in street next day

And my happening to be

the only witness on Earth

to their "insignificant" little deaths.

Ruby-crown ablaze in death

Yet still I have the itch to know more. Something has to go on their non-existent death certificates. How did the poor little Kinglets die?

Possibly a Song Sparrow lying peacefully deceased

Did they freeze to death?

Varied Thrush belly up

Did they perish from some disease or virus?

The Ruby-crowned Kinglet (?)

Did they inhale something while roosting overnight,

like toxic wood smoke from a chimney,

or from someone's (ob)noxious barbecue lighter fuel?

Cedar Waxwing (a guess)

Maybe a stealthy cat pounced and killed them?

Severely mutilated California Towhee (probably run over by car)

I don't think it's possible to know without performing an autopsy. The pathetic forensic examination I conducted on the two Ruby-crowned Kinglets revealed an absence of evidence of certain death markers such as: bite marks, gashes, mangled body parts. It's anyone's guess.

Golden-crowned Sparrow on sweet perch

REST IN PEACE

my little bird friends.

Anonymous death of a bird

Your single, individual deaths are not insignificant.

They have not gone unnoticed.

 

Pelicans gathering on ocean rock

Nor have the collective deaths

of billions and billions of birds

in our midst

on the only planet

we share together

and depend on

for our mutual survival.

Red-tailed Hawk on post

We must all do our part

to save the birds

however we can.

Super gathering of the Gulls

Read more from my bird blog about:

CHICKENSCRATCH MUSINGS ON LIFE & DEATH OF BIRDS (2013)

Great Cormorant