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How We Can Support Our Birds During These Wildfires: New From California Audubon:
Smoky days degrade the quality of our air and the respiratory health of millions of people. Our hearts go out to those who have been displaced, lost homes or loved ones.
Many of you have wondered how this affects birds. Forest fires are a new stressor for birds which are already threatened by habitat loss, climate change and pollution.
Various species are on the move to escape the flames and migrate. However, many wild food sources and staging areas are burnt, leaving birds very vulnerable.
What can we do to help the birds?
During this crisis, we recommend taking two simple steps to help local and migrating birds stay clean and fed: provide water and food.
By providing extra care during this crisis, you can help birds stay resilient. Your popular watering hole and restaurant may give you a glimpse of birds you’ve never seen before!
Tips for birdbaths and feeders
WATER: Provide water in a birdbath or shallow (2 inch) tray for drinking and bathing. Add a few stones to easily perch! With a lot of bird traffic to your bath during fires, it’s important to change the water daily to prevent the spread of disease and to remove accumulated ash.
FOOD: Keep your bird feeders or trays filled with birdseed. A variety of seeds will attract the greatest variety of birds. Black oil sunflower seed attracts the greatest number of birds. When using mixtures, choose mixtures that contain sunflower seeds, millet, and cracked corn, the three most popular types of birdseed. Mixtures of peanuts, nuts, and dried fruits are attractive to woodpeckers, nuthatches, and chickadees.
To avoid overcrowding and attract the widest variety of species, you can also provide table-shaped feeders for ground-feeding birds, tube feeders for shrub and treetop feeders and trees. Tallow feeders well above the ground for woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees. Placing feeders where there is sufficient cover will also allow birds to access food easily and safely.
What impact will fires have on birds?
Research shows that birds’ lungs may be more sensitive to respiratory distress from smoke. They are generally less active during smoke events. We don’t know how smoke affects birds’ ability to migrate or hunt. There could be long-term implications for some bird populations.
Of course, most birds are very mobile. Even if the birds leave the burning forests, shrubs and grasslands, this movement is a stressor as they then have to compete with resident birds for limited food and water in new areas of habitat. With fires burning over millions of acres, habitat refuges may also be limited.
What will be the impact of the fires on migration?
Right now, we are in a songbird migration period. Millions of birds travel south through California along the Pacific Flyway, seeking their usual resting places, especially along river corridors. When they find these scorched areas, they continue on their way in search of reliable habitat, or they fly further south without major stops to rest and refuel.
Bird migration is a series of stops, each of which is vital to a bird’s survival. If we remove these links in the chain, it will be difficult for the birds to complete their journeys. In New Mexico, biologists are seeing record numbers of dead migratory songbirds and have speculated that the cause may be related to fires in the West, leaving the birds in a weakened state for migration.
How will fires impact bird habitat?
Fire is a natural part of almost all California ecosystems and is important to its health. But the intense and frequent fires that California has experienced in recent years are not normal, and sometimes not healthy for the habitat.
Nesting habitat will have a premium in parts of the state that have burned down in recent years and this could impact an entire generation of birds in some areas if they are unable to find suitable habitat.
Learn more about the impact of fires on birds and habitat >>
What else can we do to help the birds?
As the rainy season approaches, this is a good time to plan for planting plants in backyards and gardens native to California, as they are better suited to drought and fires. Audubon’s Plants for Birds database can help you find out which plants are right for your area.
Thank you for all you do to protect birds and our communities from wildfires.
Stay safe,
Andrea Jones, director of bird conservation at Audubon, California
Joanna Wu, avian ecologist at the National Audubon Society
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