Subject: absence makes the heart grow heavy
Date: Apr 17 17:22:41 2003
From: Netta Smith - nettasmith at attbi.com


"Seattle's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." Or so
said the birds in my yard. In a period of about one week, mostly the first
week of April, our yard emptied of birds. The juncos I understand, as they
never breed around here. But Anna's Hummingbirds decreased from perhaps
three to one (easily measured by the reduced sugar-water decline in the
feeder as well as the scarcity of sightings), our one or two Song Sparrows
left, towhees all of a sudden became scarce, and the flicker flock
fluctuated downward. Nuthatches, which were coming regularly to the feeder,
seem to be absent, but I'll reserve judgment for a little longer, as they
come and go like stealth flyers.

Some of this may be attributable to nicer weather that allows birds to feed
more away from the feeders, but the resident birds usually come to the
feeders all through the summer, so I don't think that's the primary
explanation. Perhaps some of the birds are on nests, but they also usually
come to the yard during that period. It's more like a local extirpation,
and we were even wondering if a herd of cats had colonized the yard or we
were the epicenter for passerine West Nile virus, but I don't think either
of those explanations are very credible, nor is the likelihood that the big
bullfrog in our pond ate them all. Perhaps the birds are merely moving away
to better breeding habitat out in the country. Robins, B-c Chickadees,
Bushtits, and Bewick's Wrens are still in evidence, as are House Sparrows,
House Finches, and House (oops, I mean Steller's) Jays. Other than one
brief White-crowned Sparrow, not a spring migrant has appeared in the yard,
but hope springs eternal.

Dennis Paulson
--
Netta Smith and Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115