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AnneTheWriter

🧵 I heard... SILENCE.

This past week here in , the weather has been pleasant & warmer. In the past, this kind of weather would be full of life, coming awake.

I know most of the have migrated and haven't returned yet, so I don't expect to hear them. But only last week, I was regularly seeing a LOT of , and hearing lots of chirping. The bird food & bread scraps I often put out for them in the morning were always eaten before lunch.

In past years, the sky would have had lots of birds flying overhead in this first warmth. I would hear lots of chirping.

This whole day, I heard only SILENCE.

4 of the past 5 days, bird food was left uneaten. Bread scraps were only eaten by the nighttime animals.

Today, I only saw one lonely , behaving abnormally by hiding in my flower pot, right next to my door-- and near me. None of his friends ever appeared.

I hope I'm mistaken. I hope this is not due to .

Photo of a long rectangular red-orange flowerpot, with dead herbs from the previous year. In the pot, tucked between the dead roots of plants, is a tiny lonely Sparrow. Even when I (unwittingly) stood nearby, he did not quickly fly away. He was the only bird I saw that day, despite having a large supply of stale bread and a full brick of bird suet nearby. The brick of suet has been almost completely untouched for over a week.
ALT
Close-up of the lonely sparrow hiding in the dead herb roots. His behavior was very abnormal, and the entire day felt weird to me. The silence overhead all day was rather eerie. There should have been birds.
ALT
#Wildlife#Illinois#Birdstodon
Mar 02, 2025, 05:55 · · · Mastodon for Android · 3 · 12
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AnneTheWriter

🧵 2/2

I should add...

I did not go near the lonely intentionally, and I did not touch him or the flower pot he was hiding in.

He did not seem injured, and he did fly away several minutes later.

I also had my back door wide open most of the day, due to the comparative warmth (55-58°F or 13°C) after a lot of bitter cold last week. So I should have heard birds at SOME point.

It has not only been silent today, but the past few days. Today is when I was really hit with how unusual it is.

I often whistle certain bird calls, to tell the wild birds that I have put out food. They usually come by soon after I whistle, and they also chirp back at me.

The past few days, my whistles have gone unanswered, and no one has come for the food.

I hope my perception is mistaken and that I am just experiencing a fluke in their behavior. But I fear it is caused by the .

@ScienceAlert

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