Three people within a local two-mile radius who I know regularly feed the birds in their urban gardens are reporting far fewer feathered visitors than usual. Someone else, a few miles away and out in the country, is saying the same.
Possibly, it’s just a function of a mild summer and early autumn, and there being lots of natural food around. Possibly.
On the other hand, if that were the case you’d expect to see more bird life in the country, but as I cycle around the lanes of South Oxon and Berkshire, I’m fairly sure I’m seeing far fewer birds about in fields, hedgerows and so on.
Possibly, the weather has changed migration patterns. Possibly. On the other hand, I think I’m right in saying we’ve plenty of native birds that don’t migrate. And besides, even if migration patterns had been disrupted, I’d have thought that would just mean different birds being here at different times, not fewer birds.
I’m not a dedicated, knowledgeable bird-watcher. None of the people feeding birds that I’ve referred to are, either. Hopefully, these are just inaccurate impressions and nothing’s amiss.
I suspect if our collective impressions are correct, whatever’s going wrong will have very serious implications.