Nature News: Why am I not seeing birds at my bird feeder this year?

I have been getting quite a few questions about the lack of birds at our local bird feeders as well as others about what is going on with the white pine trees– they are laden with pine cones.

I think we are all worried by the recent, apparent scarcity of birds because birds have been on the decline (North America has lost one in four birds since the 1970s!). However, many of the birds that use our feeders are doing all right. Luckily there hasn’t been a new 2023 bird apocalypse, instead, this has been a terrific year for the wild foods that birds prefer to eat.

I checked with Will Broussard, an expert birder and member of New Hampshire's Rare Bird Committee about the bird feeder situation and it turns out that this is related to the large amount of white pine cones. According to Will “The lack of birds at feeders this fall is partially influenced by the abundance of natural food in the forest. This season’s rainfall produced a huge crop of pine and spruce seeds upon which many of our migrant and resident birds depend.” Every other expert source, from local Audubon Societies to bird feeder blogs (check out “Maine Birding Field Notes” by Derek Lovitch and Freeport Wild Bird Supply), are saying the same thing - this is a natural phenomena that makes it really clear that birds do not generally prefer bird feeder food over wild foods. The birds will come back to our backyard feeders when the current abundance of wild food is no longer available or harder to get.

This has been what is called a mast year for white pines.  A mast year is when trees produce huge numbers of seeds (carried in their pine cones), guaranteeing there will be more seeds produced than predators can eat thereby ensuring the successful germination of new saplings. This is why the tops of those pine trees look brown- they aren’t dying, instead they are overproducing pine cones. I have a grove of white pines out back, in addition to all of the cones 100s of feet up at the tops of the trees, the cones, sticky with sap, litter the forest floor, the pine nuts already removed by local wildlife.

Red squirrels particularly love white pine seeds, but so do a variety of the birds that frequent our bird feeders. These include nuthatches, chickadees, grosbeaks, blue jays, juncos, woodpeckers, finches and cardinals. Couple this with the mild weather (until recently) and the rainy summer that led to a larger than normal amount of seed production by local grasses and flowers (I’ve also noticed an abundance of acorns and beechnuts) and we find that there is really no reason for our neighborhood birds to seek out bird feeders. I went outside with my Merlin app turned on (this is a great app that identifies bird calls)-it recorded blue jays, woodpeckers, titmice, creepers, chickadees, juncos, and kinglets in the woods, less than 100 feet from my bird feeders! The goldfinch too were ignoring the feeders and chowing down on the dried seedheads of the echinacea in our pollinator garden.

So, the take home message here is to try not to worry about those empty bird feeders. Give the birds, and the season, some time and they will come. While waiting, why not register for Cornell Lab’s Project FeederWatch (feederwatch.org)? FeederWatch is a November-April survey of birds that visit backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. By participating you can track what is happening to birds around your home and contribute to a continental data-set of bird distribution and abundance. It will also be even more exciting when you finally have some birds to report at your backyard bird feeders.

Susan Pike, a researcher and an environmental sciences and biology teacher at Dover High School, welcomes your ideas for future column topics. Send your photos and observations to spike3116@gmail.com. Read more of her Nature News columns online at Seacoastonline.com and pikes-hikes.com and follow her on Instagram @pikeshikes.