I wrote yesterday that bird numbers in our Ravenna yard seemed normal with the exception of greater numbers of A. gold finch.

Today I report from our property on the Steamboat Island peninsula in South Puget Sound. Now I can also seriously ask, "Where are the birds?". On our property we have 4 bird feeders with mixtures of seed, a thistle feeder, and several suet feeders, plus a bird bath. We fill them whenever we arrive. In the winter that generally only occurs on weekends when we conduct Puget Sound Seabird Surveys. On arrival, nearly always all feeders, with exception of the thistle feeder, are empty. A few times when we have come two weeks in a row, we also find all of them empty.

During the summer, birds sometimes empty the feeders in 3-4 days, and generally <5% of food remains after a week.

We were last here on Monday, 7 September, and filled all the feeders when we left in early afternoon. This past week, I bought 3 large sacks of seed at the Seattle Audubon nature store in anticipation of needing a lot more food soon.

We came to the property today now that smoke levels have decreased. To my great surprise and for the first time that I can recollect over the last decade,
in three of the feeders, it doesn't look like any seed was eaten. In the other 2, about 90% still remains. The bird bath had a little water. I have only seen or heard a couple of birds in the past few hours (none at feeders). It's a bit shocking to me because we have very 'birdy' native habitat from bushes to tall deciduous and evergreen trees.

I sadly have noted this in my diary that I keep on bird observations at our place.

John Williams


Sent from my iPhone