No birds singing today - strange quiet

reply to post by SouthernRain55
Actually that's the thing, I sort of live out in the country, too. It's a mixed region with suburbs next to farms but zoned as to not push out the farms. The east coast was hard hit by the Asian stink bugs last year and this year and I think some orchard farmers got the go ahead to use different pesticides this year. I'm not saying we didn't have any birds but I do think we had fewer of the song bird types and more scavengers like vultures and birds of preys like hawks and even eagles. And we had lots of crows at varying times in the year. Some seem not to migrate at all anymore. I had a family of crows stay for the whole winter. It was a harsh winter so I don't know how they made it but they seemed to enjoy it and as I posted elsewhere, I even saw one throw little snow and ice balls at its companions!

Some thing seems to have been thrown a little off balance from past norms. Whatever it is caused the prey birds and scavengers to flourish and the bug and seed eaters to withdraw a little bit from prominence. Maybe the little birds are hiding from the greater number of hawks and eagles.

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain


I would be happy to see a hawk or (dare I say it) a buzzard fly over my house! lol

I don't know really what to make of it...about 5 days now with no birds...but apparently just right in my immediate surroundings as I have comfirmed a mile away has birds, 5 miles away has birds...going to go in the opposite direction and see what people that way say...maybe it starts here? lol

Maybe some others that are experiencing this could also check around and see if other people in your area have the same problem?

Blessed be.
Update from Rijen: still no birds singing, am seeing a few birds, but not the amount I am used to seeing and hearing!
No lawns here ( not perfect ones that is ), the gardens are not big enough and poisons are not allowed due to the fact we have some protected species in our village!

Namasté

reply to post by KhaliWitch

my parents have a lawn and bushes and there are various kinds of birds like blackbirds, a robin, approx. 15-25 sparrows (several types), 2 jays, one eurasian nuthatch. They are busy looking for food and the sparrows can be quite noisy.

We did have an unusual sighting as far as we are concerned: saturday and sunday we had an adult hedgehog visiting. Saturday evening it was actually sitting in the house, behind the front door - it had to go through the kitchen and corridor to get there. My mother gave it both evenings some cat food, the hedgehog ate it and disappeared again. We ( my mother and I) were standing on a 30 cm distance and he just continued with his small plate of cat food. He's never done this before and is usually very shy - we didn't notice him this summer.
We do have a cat, but she doesn't eat canned cat food. Our great Dane doesn't eat canned meat either, there are no meat smells in the house.
Maybe they're sensing an early /strong winter?

reply to post by Blackbird1973


Blessed be.
It is possible that they assume that is already autumn due to the cold summer that we have been having lately.
Just keep an eye on the little creature otherwise he will go into hibernation too early and wake up too soon!

Namasté

Blessed be.
Update on the birds: No singing all day, just a couple of chirps ( mostly finches and blackbirds in these parts ).

Namasté

Have to say nature is normal today here in indiana. I hear birds, cicadas, dogs and crickets outside. Nothing out of the ordinary.


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Now that storms are past and I am paying attention and more importantly, getting up early again, I must say I did not hear the usual birdsong outside my window this morning and there is no sign of any small birds out at the moment, either. But I have been seeing them at least up until the hurricane. They dart in and out of the bushes in my yard and my next door neighbor's yard...incidentally this neighbor quit getting his yard chemically treated about three years ago due to expense. My other next door neighbor took up with a new service that sprays the lawn and you can tell, there is an odd dead zone in my own yard where the chemicals drift to a bit. However it doesn't seem to affect the mosquitoes. All the neighbors are doing with all this spraying is killing off desirable insects. Stink bugs and mosquitoes shrug off the poisons. I'm sorry I am going a bit overboard and off topic with my continuing rants against lawn chemicals. This will be my last post here on it. I tend to get a bit preachy because so many dog owners on a list serve I used to belong to saw a spike in mouth cancers in their dogs when chemical lawn treatments became all the rage. And sorry but I can't help but notice that the birds do avoid these sprayed yards and settle more in mine despite my lack of bird feeders. I at least get the ones who like to eat bugs and the little seeds from my dogwood trees. However I think given the other posts here, I need to abandon the speculation that chemical sprays have anything to do with the lack of birdsong in some areas. the answer more than likely has to do with the weather or climate that may have precipitated an early migration or just induced them to be quiet.

Originally posted by SheeplFlavoredAgain
Now that storms are past and I am paying attention and more importantly, getting up early again, I must say I did not hear the usual birdsong outside my window this morning and there is no sign of any small birds out at the moment, either. But I have been seeing them at least up until the hurricane. They dart in and out of the bushes in my yard and my next door neighbor's yard...incidentally this neighbor quit getting his yard chemically treated about three years ago due to expense. My other next door neighbor took up with a new service that sprays the lawn and you can tell, there is an odd dead zone in my own yard where the chemicals drift to a bit. However it doesn't seem to affect the mosquitoes. All the neighbors are doing with all this spraying is killing off desirable insects. Stink bugs and mosquitoes shrug off the poisons. I'm sorry I am going a bit overboard and off topic with my continuing rants against lawn chemicals. This will be my last post here on it. I tend to get a bit preachy because so many dog owners on a list serve I used to belong to saw a spike in mouth cancers in their dogs when chemical lawn treatments became all the rage. And sorry but I can't help but notice that the birds do avoid these sprayed yards and settle more in mine despite my lack of bird feeders. I at least get the ones who like to eat bugs and the little seeds from my dogwood trees. However I think given the other posts here, I need to abandon the speculation that chemical sprays have anything to do with the lack of birdsong in some areas. the answer more than likely has to do with the weather or climate that may have precipitated an early migration or just induced them to be quiet.

IMO, no apologies needed! You may be on to something, perhaps in not each individuals case, but it still could be harming the birds. I do remember my neighbor spraying weed killer about a week ago...perhaps that's why I am not seeing any birds nearby?

I think we can legitimately look at the possibility lawn chemicals truly cause cancer. On my list serve it was merely an alarming enough trend that we felt it worth noting in order to protect our dogs. However at the time, nobody was linking to any scientific evidence to prove our concerns. This was a group very different in character of ATS where discussions are constantly held up to a high level of scrutiny. It was more along the lines of members reporting in that one of their dogs or a dog they knew got oral cancer and they suspected it was due to the dogs habits of chewing treated grass. I believe a lot of cases were salivary gland cancer.

I don't even need to see the signs, I can smell the smell of a newly treated lawn. It is off-putting to me so I think it probably isn't very inviting for birds. I'm surprised dogs would chew on it but I've known dogs to eat paint and drywall. But I don't know though, that lawn chemicals, that have been in vogue for at least the past 15 years, would all of a sudden cause this fairly recent issue.

I would be more inclined to think the time frame and spread out nature of the observations puts this more in line with the rumble phenomena we discuss here on ATS. The rumble is attracting our notice more and more, and strikes some areas but not others. There are so many seeming unrelated threads on ATS that could theoretically be linked together if we look at new theories on the impact of the sun on our climate and wildlife, as well as influences on our solar system by things we are still discovering. When I reread the thread I felt it was silly of me to focus so much ranting on one issue that's been going on for years to explain something suddenly being noticed.

I was just out for a two hour walk around. I saw some birds in bushes in yards and then walked through the woods and saw and heard no birds at all of any kind the entire time I was in there. Then I reached a clearing and saw flocks of about three different kinds of birds, the only ones I could identify were Bluejays. They were mostly flying along but stopped at the trees on the edge of the clearing for a bit and then flew off. A lot were frolicking in yards that had bushes in them and gardens, and I suspect they were finding more to eat in yards with some gardens going to seed right about now. Also some people spread grass seed this time of year now that searing summer heat is on the way out. So my guess is our songbirds are just migrating out or too on the go preparing for winter to stop and sing about it all. Though I saw plenty of birds and activity they were not vocalizing that much. There were just some few quick chirps here and there.

Originally posted by SheeplFlavoredAgain
I think we can legitimately look at the possibility lawn chemicals truly cause cancer. On my list serve it was merely an alarming enough trend that we felt it worth noting in order to protect our dogs. However at the time, nobody was linking to any scientific evidence to prove our concerns. This was a group very different in character of ATS where discussions are constantly held up to a high level of scrutiny. It was more along the lines of members reporting in that one of their dogs or a dog they knew got oral cancer and they suspected it was due to the dogs habits of chewing treated grass. I believe a lot of cases were salivary gland cancer.

I don't even need to see the signs, I can smell the smell of a newly treated lawn. It is off-putting to me so I think it probably isn't very inviting for birds. I'm surprised dogs would chew on it but I've known dogs to eat paint and drywall. But I don't know though, that lawn chemicals, that have been in vogue for at least the past 15 years, would all of a sudden cause this fairly recent issue.

I would be more inclined to think the time frame and spread out nature of the observations puts this more in line with the rumble phenomena we discuss here on ATS. The rumble is attracting our notice more and more, and strikes some areas but not others. There are so many seeming unrelated threads on ATS that could theoretically be linked together if we look at new theories on the impact of the sun on our climate and wildlife, as well as influences on our solar system by things we are still discovering. When I reread the thread I felt it was silly of me to focus so much ranting on one issue that's been going on for years to explain something suddenly being noticed.

I have heard the "rumble" myself. It was about 2-3 weeks ago. It started at approximately 1 am and lasted until 1:17 am.
Would be interesting to do a comparison of where the "rumbles" occured and the missing birds.
I suppose it could be a number of things..so much going on these days with flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, radiation from Japan, chem trails, etc...

SO good to see nothing but rational discussion here-- I almost never made this thread, as I thought perhaps I would receive "video or it didn't happen" posts

Still, no birds to be heard. Altho at 8 p.m. yesterday, a finch and a (?) sparrow sang for about 10 seconds, at the same time. Otherwise, nothing.

In the summer months, a beautiful assortment begin chirping at 3 a.m.
Every morning. Except for the past week, now. That we know of.

I agree fully the lawn chemicals are killing our wildlife, and the same to our pets. That needs further discussion!

Its not an issue here, or I should say huge issue.
We live in about the most stable region on the NA continent, tectonically speaking.
Well, as far as I know...

Haven't heard rumblings, but since it was brought forward, a few months ago, heard electrical humming when no other sound distractions.

We thought it was coming from the electrical box, and while a check on it found it wasn't coming from the box; the origin of the hum couldn't be located. This went on for about 3 months.

But the birds were fine up til a week ago.
Some in the area are seeing some birds, but some are now a little freaked when they've searched for bird songs, and heard none.

And yes, agree on the predator birds moving in and scaring away/killing the song birds. We never had crows til about 3 years ago. And now they're not even cawing around.

Holy cow I just heard a finch and a crow caw far away.. very exciting, had to share--

Originally posted by ItsEvolutionBaby
Holy cow I just heard a finch and a crow caw far away.. very exciting, had to share--

It's getting like that isn't it.. woop wooping when you see a few birds. I can't believe this thread has only got 9 flags with so many observations worldwide of no birds being around. I was reading somewhere the other day that birds have the same sense of sensitive smell as the dinosaurs.. I'll have to dig that out and come back with it..

Still quiet here, not seen anything flying about for a while. I suppose I'll have to go with someone else's view for now in that they're sensing a harsher winter so they've migrated earlier.

Originally posted by ItsEvolutionBaby
Holy cow I just heard a finch and a crow caw far away.. very exciting, had to share--

My daughter and I were on the porch late yesterday evening and heard one as well! I have no idea what kind of bird it was (surely wasn't a pretty sounding one) but bird non the less!

reply to post by ItsEvolutionBaby


BTW, the humming that you speak of...was it like the humming in other posts on ATS? That's odd!

Hey! From SE British Columbia.

Went camping over the weekend [3days solid] and got back lastnight about 5pm, was some fun times with the family. On saturday I asked my dad and little brother if they've noticed any birds singing or flying "like they normally would be this times of year," and they both gave me a blank stare... LOL, so I asked them to take note of it, if they can remember to do so. The whole trip I must have seen no more than 10 random birds. We were out in the middle of the boonies here in the Rocky Mountains. There should have been crows, eagles, sparrows, jays, and on and on.. Its like they've migrated already. Squirrels raided our campsite, however. As we also went fishing on the lake in our CANooooooe, [hate canoes LOL], we couldn't catch ANYTHING, let alone even see fish jumping in the water around 8pm and 6am, despite the lake being practicly covered in dead and buzzing bugs... Really weird.

Just lastnight, we had nice thunderstorm at about 3am, [not exactly sure the time as I was pretty much sleep walking], but it woke me and I had to close my window. Wake this morning and I can and do hear one bird chirping away right now, just the one little bird. Bet there lots of worms in the grass right now.... Where is ALL the birds??

Another noting for lastnight, a local deer was in the backyard munching on some apples with her young. A nice positive sign *some of* the local wildlife is "still around?" .... The eagle is still not to be heard in a while.

I wish I had money to buy a cam-corder to give an idea of how quiet it is up in these mountains [2005ft above sea]. Anywho, I'll check back in a few days with another update.

EDIT: *off topic, not relelvent*
Curiously asking; how does one flag a topic? Must I have X-many posts in order to do? Still a newbie here.

I would be more inclined to think the time frame and spread out nature of the observations puts this more in line with the rumble phenomena we discuss here on ATS. The rumble is attracting our notice more and more, and strikes some areas but not others. There are so many seeming unrelated threads on ATS that could theoretically be linked together if we look at new theories on the impact of the sun on our climate and wildlife, as well as influences on our solar system by things we are still discovering. When I reread the thread I felt it was silly of me to focus so much ranting on one issue that's been going on for years to explain something suddenly being noticed.

Blessed be.

Update from Rijen: Still no birds singing, unfortunately!

The Rumble Phenomena has not been heard by me, so I can not say if it has anything to with it!
However, I do have a large sense of suspicion about one of my neighbours as they are the kind of people that do not want anything in their garden unless they have put it there themselves!! ( everytime our cat gets loose and escapes into their garden, she comes back feeling ill and vomiting, but I have not been able to catch them in the act of spraying anything unfortunately, so it remains a strong suspicion ).

Namasté