It will be lonely when the birds are gone

I live deep in the city yet I enjoy visits from a number of our feathered friends. In the winter I am occasionally honoured by the visit of a wee chickadee. A bashful fellow, he flits half-hidden among the branches of a tall spruce that towers over my apartment.

Frequently a magpie visits me on my balcony. He throws dirt out of my flower posts, scolds me fiercely to let me know who's boss, and then goes on his way. He’s a nuisance but I love the little rascal. I’d miss his visits if he were not there. And the way things are going, one day he, and all his kind, may not be.

According to a new study, "Decline of the North American avifauna," published in the journal Science, there are almost three billion fewer birds in Canada and the United States than there were 50 years ago, a decline of 29 per cent. Birds that migrate long distances have been particularly hard hit, but even species that do well in cities are disappearing. They face a variety of threats: increased pesticide use, domestic cats, collisions with windows, fragmentation of forests, and habitat degradation by intensifying agriculture, urban sprawl, and fragmentation of forests. In other words, it's all our doing.

Sometimes I think we are like a fungus upon the Earth, spreading across and devouring, and often ruining even for our own species, more and more space. When we exterminate large numbers of our own species, which we do regularly, we call it a holocaust. Should we not then call it a holocaust when we exterminate all of another species? If so, then we are committing holocaust after holocaust after holocaust—thousands of holocausts. According to a comprehensive UN report on biodiversity, one million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction, half of them due to "insufficient habitat for long-term survival."

There are things each of us can do to save the birds, including keeping kitty indoors (after habitat loss, cats are the biggest reason for the decline), replacing grass with native plants (native plants can provide shelter, nesting areas and food for birds—grass doesn't), avoiding pesticides, and watching birds and helping track them (there's even an app—eBird).

Perhaps we can still halt the decline, but being the rapacious species we are the odds are not good. Birds are our most delightful neighbours. How like us to repay them for the delight they provide by systematically driving them into extinction.