Silence of the Songbirds by Bridget Strutchbury

Silence of the Songbirds by Bridget Stutchbury, New York, Walker and Company, 2007 256 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8027-1691-0


As an ornithologist, Strutchbury divides her time mostly between Toronto and western Pennsylvania (with field trips nestled in). She uses the songbird as a method of tracking the history and progression of species decline. She has written a personalized scientific monograph to describe the ecology of the oscine. That suborder of the passerine is capable of learning and memorizing songs of their fathers and then writing their own. It is a fascinating group of avian and the author laments their decline from several perspectives. Since all species are in this life together, as they decline our human lives are weakened.

The skeptic will demure and suggest that there is no relationship between the fate of some warbler and the flycatcher. Any understanding of symbioses will point out concepts like food chains or the adaptive reliance of one species on another (or more). There is a simple scientific reality going on.

Likewise there is a political and economic fact of life going on. As we sprawl out in our neighborhoods and in our farm practices we eat up the habitat of many creatures including the songbird. It is all for short term gain, maybe a generation or so. As trees (read habitat) are sawn and mountain tops sheared a less habitable environment exists for the flora and fauna (which includes humans). Rebirth of a species does not happen. The human gain from such activities is simply too brief to equivocate the actions with the outcomes.

Strutchbury captures the entire ecology of songbirds by outlining six reasons for their decline. Deforestation in places such as Central America has changed winter habitats dramatically. Strutchbury makes the scientific case that the alpha male birds get the prime residences in forest land and that the younger ones are left with the hinterlands. Not only does this leave them more available to predators but it also deprives them of the foodstuffs required for the calories needed for spring migration. These birds leave for their nesting destinations in weaker conditions and are more likely never to make it to a nest at all.

She makes a case for best coffee growing practices. Those would be the shade grown beans. Those who savor their java read the labels of the local offerings and see quite a few options often tugging at their morality. Organic for instance sounds right to many of us but should we delve deeper into what the appellation “organic” means we may find that it can be unsavory. The author is concerned with the symbiosis of speciation more than any other motivation and her case is that shade grown coffee is ultimately better because it adds to the diversity of life. It creates a good environment for healthy wintering birds.

Pesticides have had a devastating impact on bird life and it seems to be an issue that actually has talons as governments everywhere have recognized that pesticides have impacted the conditions for many animals, not just birds. Pesticide bans internationally have rallied several endangered species back to healthy numbers. This includes our national symbol, the Bald Eagle.

She discusses a growing concern regarding species loss that is now becoming a louder issue. Migrating birds are dying in large numbers as they migrate through urban North America. Since their patterns of migration occur at night, they use earth’s magnetic forces as well as stars and the moon for guidance. Urban areas have historically been pleasing to the eye with grand nightscapes. Buildings would keep their lights on all night in order to make their city look glamorous to the visitor. This has led to migration confusion and woodland birds caught in the city by the lights have been killed and injured by flying into windows. This problem has alerted many conservationists in the last few years and many cities have volunteers going out to collect bodies and to secure injured birds for transport to people who are trained at rehabilitation. In Baltimore where I live there is a very active group called Lights Out Baltimore which I am proud to be an active member.

On the local scene where breeding occurs we have the same problems as Central America. As we sprawl further and further into exurbia we encroach upon nesting grounds and compromise the populations of many species. We entrap both birds and predators into smaller habitat creating a situation whereby both predator and prey are forced to more dramatic lifestyles in order to survive.

Lastly she presents the hardest to handle circumstance leading to population loss. Pet cats and Cowbirds are menacing our songbirds. Her argument is weakest here though it remains compelling. It is true that cats prey on birds (more for fun than nourishment) and that preventative measures need to be taken but that is a tough argument to make in America in 2011. Cats go outdoors and do their feline thing and owners are not likely to try to keep an outdoor cat indoors. It requires a lot of attentiveness and we are not known for that. As to the cowbirds, those Mafiosi of the avian world, she describes a situation that is detailed with the nefarious nature of the bird (you’ll have to read the book if you do not already know). It is very interesting the depths that this bird will go to have its offspring raised by other species. The problem is that in the various blogs I am privy to there is an overwhelming number of articles indicating that songbirds and other species have adaptation skills allowing them to thwart the ill intentions of the cowbird. I am less convinced of the critical peril presented by cowbirds than the other circumstances that Strutchbury describes.

The author shows the conditions of song bird species decline from a mix of objective scientific reality and the emotional morality that comes from simply loving birds. This works well for this reader because any problem needs to be fixed due to the objective problem it causes. Yet all of us have a heart that we use to attend to our subjective nature and mine includes bird life.

For Strutchbury birds act as a bellwether for our whole way of life. As species populations become smaller their ability to maintain becomes more fragile. The gene pool is smaller affecting their diversity but they also are then more prone to catastrophes such as disease or conditions such as hurricanes.

Species diversity means many things to people. Certainly I want future generations to appreciate in this case, seeing live birds. More importantly we all live in an ecological niche that depends on other life forms. Ignoring dying populations of avian life may seem mundane but all living things have a reliance on all other living things regardless of how remote that may seem.