I'm northeast of you, Lake Geneva area. We don't see many cardinals but have tons of yellow canary, junko, woodpeckers and nuthatches right now. Can keep enough suet in the feeder for the woodpeckers.

We have tons of birds here in NE Ohio.

I'm going to ask our son who lives in Evanston, will report back.

My feeders are as busy as ever this winter.

Lots of birds in the Ozarks

Lots of them here. Including Cardinals, blue jays, robins, black birds etc. When I was in Louisiana I saw huge flocks of black birds, ducks, and geese, herons, and egrets.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5036033/disappearing-birds#n=25https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/3548708/very-odd-no-birds#n=36

Observations all made in Dec.

Chisue, you’re right, I just realized that. Of course, there are plenty of geese. and hawks. And I have seen some what we call “bopper birds”, wee sparrow-like birds.

This morning, I could swear I heard sandhill cranes overhead! Did you hear them?

I believe they may be all here. I have 6 feeders up and they are busy all day long. Everything from pine siskins to Cardinals and doves. Maybe because I don't live in the city. There is a pond down the road from me and a Great blue heron is working that. Saw a barn owl last night. I feed the crows too, in the back pasture, and have a big flock of them. See buzzards every day too, and also hawks.

That's cause they are still staying south.

ours have varied over the years. we used to get a ton of Pine siskins which we never see now and also Gold Finches and those are only a few now. We get plenty of Woodpeckers to the suet feeder-and my favorite Chestnut backed Chickadees, plenty of Stellars Jays and Red Wings. In the fields I am not seeing the enormous flocks of Swans but I think they are more and more dispersed over the valley. They do vary by the time of day but I miss the Siskins. It is probably not a good thing.

Mind you, Chisue, it was pretty blustery today, not exactly flying or hopping-on-lawns weather.

I'm not close enough for it to relate, but we've got birds. Chickadees, flickers, jays, several others where I'd have to look up their names (!), our ever present hummingbirds (seems to be 4 this season) and DH's owl visited a few evenings ago.

I only have an occasional bird at my feeders. This year there is a huge crop of acorns and the holly type plants are loaded with berries. There are many more acorns than the birds, squirrels, and deer can eat. I will not get finches until really cold weather occurs.

I see that you posted this 9 hrs ago. (My location is a few miles west of Milwaukee.) I also have noticed a reduction of birds at my feeder over the past 3 years, however, there may have been a causative factor in bird behavior this afternoon. As you may have noticed, tonight we are having our first significant snow of the season. The birds may have sensed a change in the weather and searched for places to ride out the night. Get worried if the birds do not return to your feeder tomorrow after it becomes light. If they were holed up for the night, they will be hungry come morning and will search for food. If they decided to move farther south, then it may be several weeks before you begin to see them again.

I noticed that I had less than normal number of birds at my feeder this afternoon. A flock of wild turkeys that usually show up once per day were missing today. These turkeys roost at night in trees and about half way up the tree. They prefer pine and spruce trees.

Good cover is important for small birds for going through winter fronts and snows. If your lot is surrounded by thick evergreens, they hiding in those; If your location is barren of cover, then the birds have vacated to cover elsewhere.

I have seen only one house sparrow (AKA English Sparrow) in the past 2 months. A number of years ago, a virus wiped out the Midwest flock and those have not recovered as yet. I do see an increase in House finches. Those have been expanding their range westward. I have not seen my pair of Cardinals for 2 weeks. Birds visiting my feeder this season are yellow finch, chick-a-Dee, mourning doves, an occasional blue Jay, house finch, 2 species of Nuthatches, 2 species of woodpeckers, and junco.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-america-canada.html

Sad, but interesting, report of Chicago birds. https://nypost.com/2019/12/05/climate-change-is-shrinking-birds-in-the-us-study/

We have never had bird feeders. The 'neighborhood birds' have been nesting and foraging here summer and winter all 20 years we've lived here. Yes, there were gusty conditions during our drive, but the thing is...I haven't seen any birds in our yard all month. We've had unseasonably warm temps and sun.

We've left the land along our creek go wild -- after cutting down the volunteer elms and ashes, which would have died anyway. We have cone flowers. No dog. No cats.

This is worse than during the Asian Bird Flu. Will the birds come back? Will we be 'eaten alive' by bugs, or are they missing, too?

It is also never truly DARK here anymore. (OK, enough complaining.)

Chisue, here is the reply from our son in Evanston which shouldn't be too far from you......

I have been seeing quite a few birds both here and during our short stay in Kansas City.

I will keep a particular look out this week and report bird count by species and sex(as best I can without getting too personal).

We did get a couple of inches of snow last night so they should be looking for food and easier to spot...

I have no answer for you but it must be a regional phenomenon. Bird populations may be declining overall but there is NO shortage of them where I live!! I am a block up from the Sound and there are always scores of shore birds around at low tide - gulls, cormorants, herons, ducks...even the occasional eagle. In the woods surrounding my house and garden are wrens, thrushes, finches, sapsuckers, chickadees, robins and crows. I have never seen one but I hear owls. Occasionally a flock of starlings will visit. I have even seen ring necked pheasants darting across the road.

And of course there are our resident Anna's hummingbirds that are year round visitors.

I've seen plenty of birds here, even some Bluebirds :)

Hmm, now that you mention it, I've seen (Toronto area) plenty of squirrels in my yard, but haven't seen any birds flying to/from or perched in our trees lately. I'll have to take note next time I'm out walking the dog, if I see any birds.

Thanks, Janie.

Mdln -- Yes, I have read similar news stories. Terribly sad and going to get worse as we continue to pollute and pave.

Thanks for the chuckle, Marilyn C. "Inside of a cow," haha. (Anyone ever ask how you'd know?) It was dark at night 20 years ago, when we moved here, 30 miles north of Chicago. Houses are on 1 - 5 acres in my neighborhood. Newcomers seem enthralled with outdoor illumination. (MY mother would declare them afflicted with House-Pride.)

Chisue, just got another report from Evanston - they seem to have no shortage of birds in their backyard. I didn't get any details, but son said that there are still plenty of birds around and they are enjoying watching a male and female cardinal.

chisue -have you thought about putting out a feeder to entice the birds to your yard?

For Christmas I asked for a nyger feeder and a Squirrel Buster. We've lived here for 2 years and I told DH that I missed seeing all the little birds that used to frequent my feeders at our old house. I put the feeders up 10 days ago and initially only a few birds showed up. But this afternoon I noticed juncos, wrens, titmice, chicadees, nuthatches and a downy. No cardinals or finches yet but it's still early.

We also have woods and a creek behind our house and I think one of the reasons that I didn't notice the birds before is that there is plenty of food in the woods - we have several huge oak and beech trees and the ground is littered with beech nuts, acorns and even some hickory nuts.

I took down our feeders this year because of a sudden increase of predatory house cats. Grrrr. Coyotes moved in and have thinned their numbers, thankfully, but I still haven't put feeders back up.

I've discovered that our yard is attractive to birds regardless of the lack of feeders, as they feed on seeds, buds, critters in the soil and under the bark. They roost in the trees and shrubs and build their nests in the spring of the year.

They follow me around the garden, waiting for me to scare up some insects or toss them a caterpillar.

The bird population in my neighborhood has crashed. At the start of this winter season, I had birds at my feeder. There were fewer than last year, but there some birds. Here in the neighborhood, that can be a wide variation in the number seen on a given day. For the past 2 weeks, I have seen hardly any birds anywhere in the neighborhood. I'm seeing about 3 birds a day. Of course, I am not looking at the feeder all the time, but for the times I do look, I see only 2 to 3 birds per day when in past years, there were times when crowds of birds were at the feeder. We had a pair of resident cardinals. Those always came as darkness fell to tank up for the night. They fed later than other birds. I have not seen a cardinal for the past 3 weeks. The blue Jay that frequented the feeder 3 months ago has disappeared. I have not seen any juncos for 3 weeks. Those are ground feeders and they arrive when other birds toss seed out of the feeder. They might be avoiding because the ground is bare of seed for them. They will use the feeder, but much prefer the ground. Not long ago, we had plenty of house finches; Those are gone. We did have a flock of mourning dove that visited each day. The flock was about 10 in number. I saw one yesterday and none today. There is a roaming flock of wild turkeys that pass through the backyard once per day. Those came today. I filled the bird feeder a week ago an not much has been taken. Its as though the birds have been poisoned or diseased. The population has crashed at my place. Some reduction can be attributed to loss of habitat from building new subdivisions. My town have very little open land left compared to 10 yrs ago.

New at my feeder...actually for the milo I put on the ground for the doves...the wood ducks from the little pond down the road.

Jem -- I don't know where to go to investigate this. You and I are in a geographic north/south 'swath'.

I know there's a problem with air pollution from Medline in Waukegan -- same medical sterilization operation as our Ex-Governor Rauner's Stericycle plant in Willowbrook, IL that apparently caused a raft of deadly cancers in humans for years before the EPA acted.

Since I started this thread, I've seen ONE crow and about 75 geese sheltering on the leeward side of a berm at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital. NO song birds.

We never fed the birds since we've been going away for several months in winter over the past 20-30 years. I am now really curious about WHY some of us are seeing this decline, and wondering how far it extends.

Last month found two birds had hit my sunroom and died, within a couple days of each other. I hate when that happens.