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Comment by JonathonW | Hacker News Reader

Since there seems to be some confusion on the topic here, this article isn't talking about a long-term nationwide decline in bird populations. This is an acute illness (of unknown origin, so far) impacting mostly juvenile birds that started being reported in certain regions of the US (not nationwide) back in late May/early June. There are good odds that this is either some kind of novel contagious disease (most of the likely culprits have been ruled out), or something to do with their food supply (the affected regions have a suspicious overlap with regions where Brood X cicadas emerged, but there's no conclusive link known so far).

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources has a good synopsis of the situation, as well as suggested actions for those in impacted areas (mostly, bring in bird feeders and regularly sanitize bird baths if you leave them filled): https://fw.ky.gov/News/Pages/Kentucky-Fish-and-Wildlife-prov...

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I live on 1 acre against a small wooded area in central PA. Very rarely see dead birds. The other day I saw a dead bird and a very confused bird next to it in my garden, young robins I think. I thought perhaps they were attacked until I read about this phenomenon.

When I was a kid I saw what looked like a black bird (Icteridae) kill a robin right in front my eyes. They were flying around each other in close proximity very fast and eventually the black bird must have bumped into the robin with it's beak and the robin dropped dead. I went to pick it up and took it home to show my parents. I've wondered how common that is, haven't seen it since.

Recently saw a pack of crows attack and kill one of a mockingbird pair. The mate tried to save it but was unsuccessful. The crow flew off with it in its beak and the rest of the crows joined it and tore the mockingbird to pieces. I see now why a group of crows is called "a murder of crows".

Beaks of Wrath

Perhaps too reductive, but it was not that long ago that poisoned dog food from china was mass killing pets.

Perhaps people should learn from the old adage:

stop feeding the animals... (with tainted bulk food you bought at lowes/homedepot mass produced in China)?

This is something they're considering, too, and part of the reason that it's recommended to put away your bird feeders in impacted areas.

But, mostly, they're concerned that whatever's going on is contagious and could potentially spread when birds congregate at feeders. It's hard to convince birds to social distance.

I was too lazy and/or insufficiently confident in my mediocre handyman skills to put up bird feeders, so I just put little piles of seeds on the railing of my deck with maybe 4" (10 cm) between adjacent piles.

As a side effect, I get nicely social distanced animals. During the most crowded times there are still ~3x as many piles as there are simultaneous diners.

If you want to feed animals, make sure you have plenty of insects around. They're the bottom of the food chain and if you have lots of insects around then the birds will come for them.

The other night we had a bunch of seagulls hunting butterflies and moths above us. At first we thought they were attacking us, but after a few times we noticed they were simply hunting. Their prey, in their turn, are mostly busy devouring a patch of nettles on a slope at the end of our property, and so they're keeping the nettles in check AND the birds fed.

As a bonus, I don't have to mow the lawn either.

Gee, a new contagious disease in birds. What could it be!

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