I had an extremely bad year bird-watching wise so far. There are definitively a lot fewer birds around than there used to be.
For example, only a few starlings came by to harvest all the surplus aronias. And only one was visible enough to take a picture. Normally, at this time of year, the tree should be stripped bare by starlings and thrushes heading south.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I have not seen a single golden finch, greenfinch, or siskin the whole year. Neither have I seen any fieldfares, or thrushes, and just a few blackbirds, very sparsely. Chaffinch song is usually a constant presence the whole summer – and this year I cannot remember hearing it even once, despite chaffinch being supposedly the most common bird of central Europe.. And in the last month or two tits and sparrows – the consants of my garden the whole year – have disappeared too. Redstarts are still here, but wagtails never showed up.
I fear this is a real environmental problem and a local sign of a global catastrophy.
I feel that songbirds including starlings have been more scarce here as well.
I don’t see starlings very often, but I can hear flocks of them chattering away hidden in trees when I go for a walk. Here in the US, they are an introduced and somewhat invasive species, and if anything their numbers seem to be growing.