Insects and songbirds

Insects and songbirds

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Recent declines in bird populations brought me to Dr. Bruce Stein, who has spent much of his career on the topic of wildlife biodiversity. First of all, the decline of almost a third of the birds is in the United States, not the world in North America, continental U.S. and Canada. What is the cause of the decline? There was a study that was published in the journal Science that showed almost a 3 billion bird decline since the 1970s in North America. That's about a 29 percent decline. And we're talking about number of individual birds that are flying around or as the case may be, not flying around. And a lot of these are actually common species, not the rare ones that we often think about, things like redwing blackbirds and meadow larks. And so you do have to ask what's going on here, because this is a real wakeup call. It's clear that there's a number of things that are contributing to these declines. One of the major is loss of habitat, conversion of habitat from natural ecosystems to agricultural production or loss of forest. So that's one thing. The encroachment of invasive species is another thing and the use of pesticides being a third. There's a variety of factors and there are often species specific. We also know that when we identify certain things that are threatening a particular group of species, we have the ability to turn it around.

Planting native trees, shrubs, grasses and wildflowers near farmland can attract songbirds, which in turn can help farmers control insect pests. A University of California study says songbirds can reduce insect pests by up to 46%. The researchers say planting habitat along the borders of fields benefits songbirds and provides natural pest control, because those bird species eat insects and don't damage crops.

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