Rhode Islanders seeing fewer birds at their feeders this fall
Rhode Islanders are noticing fewer birds at their feeders this fall, and while it’s not uncommon during the migratory season, there is reason to be concerned about the annual decline of our feathered friends.
Charles Clarkson, director of avian research at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, said the Audubon has taken calls from concerned citizens all year about absences at their feeders, asking if there is anything they can do to help.
Declines led Maine Audubon to post an editorial last week in response to Mainers’ concerns.
Clarkson said one reason people may be noticing a difference in the last few weeks is due to thousands of birds making night flights south to warmer climates over hundreds of miles.
“We are smack dab in the middle of migration,” he said. “Birds are exiting the region; when we get the big pulse of depletion, migration reduces the number of birds.”
On Oct. 1, Clarkson said the Audubon Society estimated that 113,000 birds flew over Rhode Island in a southbound movement.
The migratory season runs from late August with a lot of shorebird movement, all the way up to the first or second week of November. Early October is the height of the migration season, with tens of thousands of birds overhead flying on northerly winds.
Currently, most of the migrants are warbler species, kinglets and verios, a small neotropical species traveling from Canada to Central and South America. Rhode Island has more short-distance migrants, including Lincoln and whitethroated sparrows that move down to the Mid-Atlantic region, according to Clarkson. The migrating birds are shifting their diets and may forgo feeders for insects.
“Lots of food is available for birds,” Clarkson said. “A lot of birds reliant on fruits are leaning heavily on those resources rather than folks’ backyard seeds . . . . A lot of birds will derive food from natural sources.”
In January, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island’s “State of Our Birds” report showed that more than a third of all species of birds that breed on Audubon refuges in Rhode Island — about 95,000 acres — are experiencing longterm population declines.
Clarkson told the Globe that the declines were found over the course of the entire breeding season.
A total of nine species designated as “Responsibility Birds” will receive additional monitoring to determine if the Audubon Society can take action to “mitigate population declines and promote local and regional population growth.”
These are natural reasons for the decline, but Clarkson said the “sad truth” is that a large percentage of the birds that breed in New England are experiencing 50 consecutive years of decline.
“Every year is a worse year,” he said. “You rarely see a population increase for these birds, driven by habitat loss, climate change, and predation . . . . There’s always going to be concern among those of us who study birds, that you will see a population crash at some point.”
Clarkson said the Audubon Society wants to spread the message about the annual decline of birds, and asks that people tell the group about declines in their area.