Cold weather takes toll on Minnesota songbirds
Bea Karnes
This should be Carrol Henderson's favorite task of the year -- checking bird nest boxes at Carlos Avery Wildlife Management area in Forest Lake, Minnesota to see who's taken up residence.
"This one looks like it's not in use yet," said the Nongame Wildlife Program supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He checks another, then another, looking for blue birds or tree swallows. Those boxes are empty too.
"They should be active by now," said Henderson. The pattern is being repeated across the state. The DNR has received dozens of reports of migrating songbirds either dead or missing.
Some of those concerns have come from people observing a group of tree swallows huddled on the banks of the Mississippi River near Fridley.
"They'd fly out a little, come back, sit down, and within that little group of swallows that were all huddled together they were just dropping over dead," said Henderson.
The problem was the cold weather. Birds returned on schedule from warmer climates but found no insects to eat. Starvation followed.
"The early arrivers in a typical year -- they're fine, but this year they got stuck. They died," Henderson explained.
Something similar happened in 1969. Henderson says blue birds and swallows are good breeders and will recover over time, from a spring when the early bird got it wrong.
"It's disappointing. You hate to see a loss of birds like this, especially when it's something virtually nobody can do anything about," said Henderson.
