Using our Durham yard as a case study, I wanted to check to see if there were indeed fewer birds this winter than last year, as some (but no longer a majority) of folks have continued to mention to us at the store.

Stuck at home last winter while recovering from shoulder surgery, our feeding station provided my primary source of entertainment. I occupied my time with mugs of tea and enjoying the activity, and occupied my mind with figuring our exact counts, keeping tallies, and watching behavior closely. I wrote about my counts and observations in a pair of blogs, the first one is here, and the second one is here.

This past fall, everyone saw a very slow fall at feeders in Maine, and throughout the East, as discussed here. That was changing for a lot of people – but not all, by December, which I talked about in this follow-up blog.

In January, a series of strong storms, unseasonable heavy rain and flooding, a few cold spells, and eventually, by month’s end, solid snowcover helped change the narrative. Winter food resources were being consumed, ground-feeders were being forced out of the woods, finches were moving about, and so on. Furthermore, I believe that those strong storms knocked a lot of cones – especially those of Eastern White Pine – to the ground where they were subsequently consumed and/or buried.

At least here at our feeders in Durham, a slow start to the winter was a thing of the past, as we were filling almost all of our feeders daily by the end of January. Some impressive tallies included over 70 American Goldfinches and over 50 Dark-eyed Juncos at the end of the month.

American Goldfinches have been absolutely ravaging Nyjer at our home this winter. Fresh Nyjer makes all of the difference!

While some factors remain true from the fall – an abundance of natural food overall, relatively limited snowcover, low movement of irruptive species, etc – clearly most people were reporting to the store that things were “back to normal” or “tons of birds all of the sudden,” and so on. Our seed sales more than doubled by the end of January from what they were at the beginning of the month (by overall poundage).

Just how “normal” have things returned to, and what anomalies are out there? While our home in Durham is only two years old, and we’re a long way away from baseline data or long-term averages, we can at least compare February of 2024 to February of 2023. And since I had nothing better to do last winter, I already had some data to compare to.

So, for the last 10 days (not including the two that we were out of town for), I have once again returned to the window for dedicated sessions of feeder-watching and counting. Like last year, I used the standard methodology of using “high counts” (maximum number of individuals seen at any one time, unless they were readily identifiable as being different), and I was sure to count for at least one hour a day each day.

February 5 – February 15 (minus 2/12 and 2/13).

Every year is different, and every yard is different. Controlling here for time and place, we can make some comparisons however. It was much colder in this period last year, with an average morning low of 19.6.  This year, the average morning low for the ten days was 23.9 and there is a lot less snow on the ground, even after the fresh inch and a half Friday morning; there were three light snowfall events during the “study period” last year.

Clearly, there are plenty of birds at our feeders at least!  And, contrary to conventional wisdom, we actually have more birds overall than last year! The dearth of feeder birds from the fall is no longer true for us. Similar conclusions can be reached from comparing data on our feeder birds at the store, and from conversations with friends and customers. Therefore, I believe the overall pattern fits what many are observing throughout the area.

As discussed in the aforementioned feeder blogs from the fall, Black-capped Chickadees are in low numbers. I saw 4.5 fewer per day at the feeders than last year. This goes with the idea that our local residents were not augmented by irruptives from points north, but also suggests that they did not have a great breeding season.  Same for Red-breasted Nuthatch and Blue Jays.

But native sparrows are in larger numbers than last year, especially Dark-eyed Juncos (and elsewhere, like our store, significantly more White-throated Sparrows with a new winter record of 24 on 2/16). My guess is because the mild fall, abundant seeds from a productive growing season, and benign start to the winter kept those around to be pushed to feeders as the season wore on.

And yes, there are indeed a lot of goldfinches around!  But very few other finches – at least at feeders. I am not sure where these European Starlings came from, however, and I’m not overly pleased by it!

Raptors are another part of the equation. This time last year, we had more consistent presence from two different Sharp-shinned Hawks.  This winter, we only recently confirmed the presence of a single Sharp-shinned Hawk (seen on 2/15 and 2/16, but she likely took a Mourning Dove on the 14^th).  There was also an all-too brief fly-through of an immature American Goshawk on the 6^th. Also this winter, a Red-tailed Hawk has been more frequent around the feeding station, but its focus is primarily the squirrels and voles.  So we’ve had enough native predator presence both years that it shouldn’t be a huge factor in comparing feeder counts.

There you have it. 2024 does not have fewer birds at feeders compared to the same period in 2023, at least not in our yard as a single case study. With continued improvement of our yard’s habitat (most of which was put on hold this year due to my shoulder issues) planned, we would hopefully be increasing our yard’s carrying capacity, as feeders remain only a supplement and a relatively small percentage of a bird’s diet, even in the depths of winter.

Next winter, we also might not find a single Eastern White Pine cone in the entire state, and a lot fewer Red Oak acorns and Balsam Fir cones. And if that’s true to our north, perhaps this will increase the amount of irruptives around the area. But we’ll see!  And maybe I’ll repeat this exercise next year, if I can force myself to sit still long enough!

Last winter, we had a male Red-bellied Woodpecker nearly every day, while this winter it has only been this female. We hope they find each other!