The ancient world teemed with birds
1–10 of 73 posts
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#2This was very good. Thanks for sharing.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#3Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town.
I understand that what I see is already a pale comparison compared to 200 or 10,000 years ago, but the numbers are still impressive. I am also aware of how little attention my fellow citizens pay to the variety of bird life around them. But it is still surprising to me that people can talk about cities having few birds and little diversity.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#4Birds have been in significant and will probably continue to decline due to human activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_extinction
The main drivers I think are plain habitat loss, pesticide use (associated decline in insect population), and large scale change in available food and climate.
I think the easiest to address would be pesticide and herbicide use -- widely known to have other negative side effects, such as effect on bees, possible human effects, biodiversity loss, etc. Hopefully it can be replaced by techniques like crop diversification and maybe robotic/biological pest control.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#5Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town. I understand that what I see…
I think we're blessed in Australia with variety and number of birds.
But even here, especially in larger cities they seem to be fewer and fewer and less diverse.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#6Sparrows were every where in Bangalore when I was growing up. After the city grew crazy, the pollution grew and so did the Mobile phone towers.
You won't be able to find a single sparrow today. Not one. There is a also a noticeable decline in other bird population and diversity. Mostly because Bangalore's lakes are gone. There was a lake called Hebbal Lake where migratory birds would visit from Australia every year. They've stopped coming.
Unmitigated disaster.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#7Sparrows were every where in Bangalore when I was growing up. After the city grew crazy, the pollution grew and so did the Mobile phone towers. You won't be able to find a single sparrow today. Not one. There is a also a noticeable decline in other bird population and diversity. Mostly because Bangalore's lakes are gone. There was a lake called Hebbal Lake where migratory birds would visit from Australia every year.…
Vultures man, those are things that we nearly lead to extinction recently in India. I remember when I was a kid there used to be a road in Delhi with the dead tree and vultures sitting all over it. But by the time I was an adult there were no Vultures in most of India. The heavy use of antibiotics we realised too late was causing the decline. The Parsi people (zorastrians) were impacted badly because their religious practice is to let the body be eaten away by animals, and without vultures the bodies were just rotting very badly.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#8Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town. I understand that what I see…
I live downtown in a large Canadian city and there's magpies, pigeons, sparrows, ducks, geese, and the occasional hawk or falcon. That's just downtown. Go to one of our parks and there's more variety. An hour outside of town, even more. No, birds don't seem particularly scarce here.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#9Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town. I understand that what I see…
I've been in places in the USA and Europe that just feel devoid of birds or often insects. Lift a log in Australia and there are dozens of living things crawling around. In parts of the US, more often than not, there's nothing.
I have a pretty routine suburban backyard in South Australia and there are loads of birds, as with your experience - lorikeets, wattlebirds, etc.
Re: The ancient world teemed with birds
#10Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town. I understand that what I see…
I've been in places in the USA and Europe that just feel devoid of birds or often insects. Lift a log in Australia and there are dozens of living things crawling around. In parts of the US, more often than not, there's nothing. I have a pretty routine suburban backyard in South Australia and there are loads of birds, as with your experience - lorikeets, wattlebirds, etc.
Using Australia as the baseline measure for wildlife/insect levels and you're going to find the vast majority of places wouldn't keep up..