Birds

I wonder where we are in the long-predicted bird-pocalypse. Out on the porch in the mornings these days I hear a variety of birdsong.

Some light Googling tells me that the declines in bird populations across America continue. 2.9 billion birds gone since 1970, says the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a loss of 1 bird in 4. I suppose we shouldn't be shocked given that there are a lot more humans and a lot more built environment in which we live. 

So they have less environment in which to live. It sounds bad, but maybe it's not all bad. We have more deer living everywhere, but they're skinny little things and it doesn't look like they're having much fun as they munch through everything they can see.

Interestingly, Mary has been seeing some mink in our yard recently. Given that mink love to eat bunnies and we haven't seen many bunnies this year, Mary has hypothesized that the mink have gobbled up the bunnies and taken over their dens. Good of them to do that away from our curious but squeamish human eyes.