Birds and bees near you?

[prairiewindmomma]

Have you seen a honeybee yet this year? Do you hear bird song?

Our neighborhood fruit trees have been in full blossom for a couple of weeks. Normally when you walk underneath them you hear bees happily humming. There has been nothing this year. 
 

I also normally have lots of birds that sing and chatter constantly during sunlight hours. There is noticeably less bird song this year, and whereas I used to have 2-3 birds picking out worms from my garden in the morning, now I rarely see them.

Is anyone else noticing a huge downturn in wildlife in their area? We have had a continuous decline over the last few years. 😞 

[KungFuPanda]

I’m not sure I’d notice a subtle difference in volume but the birds are now loud in the morning and the bees are kind of everywhere. I do have plants that are seriously delayed this year and seedlings that are usually larger by now out in my garden so I’m not sure what is up. We didn’t even have much of a winter so I’m not sure I can blame the one freeze we got. 

[mom2scouts]

Yes, the honeybees are everywhere right now. It's hard to sit on the porch, but we do have two beekeepers nearby. We always have lots of different birds in our yard because we have bird feeders. Our neighbor had 2 barred owls in her tree last week. We're not noticing a decline of wildlife, but an increase. I live in a suburban type neighborhood within the city limits of a small city and we see foxes, coyotes, hawks, owls, woodpeckers, ducks, geese, heron, raccoons, oppossums, and skunks on a regular basis. There's a river nearby and, starting a few years ago, river otter have been spotted there for the first time in years.

[Pawz4me]

I've seen a good number of bees and several butterflies already. We always have tons of birds around our feeders. I hear lots of chirping right now.

[marbel]

I haven't noticed much bee action yet but we don't have anything blooming yet. We do have a lot of birds that visit our feeder: cardinals, robins, jays, lots of crows, others I don't recognize. Occasionally hawks will swing by. Other wildlife we see are squirrels, chipmunks, and, less often, fox, skunk, groundhog, racoon. We are in a typical suburb. 

[skimomma]

We are pre-bee season here and are currently experiencing a blizzard.  But we do have plenty of birds.  And they wake up and start birding at 5am.  And I am still not used to that.

[Guest]

Im not at home at the moment; I’m in Scotland. But yes, we have seen honeybees and hear quite a bit of birdsong. The rental where we are right now has some very sing-songy birds outside, to the point it could wake me up. 
 

We also went to a garden where there was a building structure that quite obviously had a hive in it. The entire structure was humming and there were hundreds of bees coming and going. It seemed to me that this is not what the garden keepers intended - I think it was originally an equipment shed - but perhaps they let the bees take over. 

[ScoutTN]

Loads of birds! Bluebirds, mourning doves, robins, chickadees, all nesting in our yard. Some bees, both honeybees and bumblebees. Only a few butterflies. But it hasn’t stayed warm for more than a few days at a time here and nights are still in the 40’s occasionally.

Many sorts of wildlife that typically inhabit suburbia here: deer, possums, raccoons, coyotes, foxes, an occasional bobcat, hawks, owls, eagles, wild turkeys, bats, snakes, salamanders, frogs/toads, occasional woodchucks, dratted moles, beaver (at the nearby lake). 

Edited May 1, 2023 by ScoutTN

[saraha]

On the warm days last week the bees were all over our honeysuckle. I haven’t noticed any difference 

[mommyoffive]

We haven't hardly had any warm days yet.  But on one that was in the 50s last week I did see a bumble bee and thought it was a bit early.  Nothing really in bloom yet. 

Lots of birds. They love our yard because we have so many trees. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Tons of birds and bird song.  In fact, even when it was still snow outside, the birds seemed to know that spring was still coming and were singing up a storm.

I see bees daily.  Last year we had a bumble bee nest in our yard (a bit problematic since they build ground nests) but I just carefully marked where it was and didn't step on it.  This year they've moved the nest but are still close by.

You didn't ask about frogs, but the frogs are so active at night that you step outside to a wall of frog song.  And even during the day on rainy days you can't have a conversation near the ponds. 

[Spryte]

Birds, yes, so many birds! Mostly cardinals, woodpeckers, robins, titmouse, chickadees, finches.

[Selkie]

Thankfully, we are surrounded by loads of birds, bees, and other wildlife as usual.

[alisoncooks]

Plenty of birds and bees. 

[Terabith]

We have tons of birds and bees of different types. I have to keep lecturing Aslan that he shouldn't try to hunt/ eat them.  

I have noticed a huge downturn in insect populations, however, just judging from my windshield.  I drove ten hours to west Tennessee, and we never needed to clean the windshield.  I remember thirty years ago having to wash it every time we got gas.  

[wisdomandtreasures]

There are tons of bees in my yard. They're coming for the blossoms on our fruit trees. Apricots, apples, peaches, pears, cherries, plums... As far as birds, we have lots of quail, magpies, northern flickers, and red wing black birds. 

[gardenmom5]

Haven't paid attention to bees.  My bird feeders have been busy.

[wintermom]

The birdfeeder is busy with birds, chipmunks, squirrels - the usual activity. I have no idea when bees come out in our region. It's still pretty cold.

I'm just guessing that with the avian flu outbreak, there will be fewer birds overall. I don't track them closely enough to know.

Edited May 1, 2023 by wintermom

[Elizabeth86]

I can’t weigh In because I’ve spent a lot less time out this spring than I usually do. I did notice my rhododendrons didn’t bloom this year. My birthday was yesterday and they always blooming on my birthday. 

[Clarita]

In my own backyard we are on the uptick of birds and bees wildlife. One of our back neighbors had heavily poisoned their yard, since they've moved away there has been a really noticeable increase in honeybees and mason bees. Since that neighbor moved away we get so much more blooms and fruit especially on berry plants.

The birds hanging out in my yard may reduce because the new neighbors have an outdoor cat that counts my backyard as part of his patrol. They've handicapped his hunting with a belled harness but the birds still tend to stay away or in higher parts of the trees when there's a cat on patrol.

[stephanier.1765]

I'm actually seeing a larger variety of birds in my neighborhood this year. I've seen a handful of bees but I can't tell you whether there are more or less than previous years.

[Carrie12345]

It’s National Geographic over here even though we’ve barely started budding.  I had to yell at a turkey for pecking our cars the other day.

There’s a lot of horrific development planned nearby, and I am worried about what’s going to result from that.

[mommyoffive]

22 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

I can’t weigh In because I’ve spent a lot less time out this spring than I usually do. I did notice my rhododendrons didn’t bloom this year. My birthday was yesterday and they always blooming on my birthday. 

Happy Belated Birthday!  Hope you had a great day.

[prairiewindmomma]

I am relieved to hear things are going well elsewhere. I know there are boxes of hives about 1/2 a mile west of me and some more a mile north. I think I am going to keep an eye out next time I go walking to see if their boxes are there. Maybe they’ve moved. 
 

I have a lot of bee friendly food in my yard, so usually things are pretty busy out there by now.

[Halftime Hope]

My son's in-laws' bee hives died last year. They have a hobby farm and are about to get new bees. (I have no idea how that is done.)

We've had all kinds of butterflies this year...really wonderful.  The happy news is that I have a bazillion earthworms in my leaf mold compost pile. They've come up from the earth to a happy spot, apparently.  🙂

[Shoeless]

Lots of busy bees a few weeks ago when the dandelions and bluebonnets popped out. 

I've also seen lots of birds, squirrels, a fox, and rabbits lately. 

[Eos]

There's definitely less in the last few years.  A wild swarm of bees we were watching last fall has woken up, though, and today I saw the broad-winged hawk parents and heard their squawking baby.  A heron landed in our swamp yesterday.

[Innisfree]

3 hours ago, Terabith said:

have noticed a huge downturn in insect populations, however, just judging from my windshield.  I drove ten hours to west Tennessee, and we never needed to clean the windshield.  I remember thirty years ago having to wash it every time we got gas.  

This is true for us too. Over the last six months I’ve been repeatedly traveling the same route I grew up traveling. Exactly the same experience with the windshield. It’s depressing.

Our local bees and birds are fine, though I notice a big difference in the bird populations and species in the places we’re traveling between. I think it’s because one yard is full of food plants and shelter, and the other is pretty barren at the moment: just grass and a small, sparsely planted set of foundation shrubs. That’ll be changing as soon as I can manage. But, anyway, my point is that hyper-local species selection and diversity can make a big difference in what birds we see.

[bookbard]

I planted lots of salvia last year and was rewarded with a lot of blue-banded bees this year, native to Australia. Also native stingless bees, and european honeybees, and perhaps a carpenter bee (too quick for me to identify). After all the rain 2020-2022, we have had a massive upsurge in insect life and with that bird life too. Lots of butterflies as well. But they say we're going to go the other way this year and return to dry weather and drought. Really not looking forward to that. 

[Ann.without.an.e]

My yard is swarming with both 

I also planted a lot of Salvia last year too and man did that attract the bees. They love it. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

People in this area seem to be well aware of the importance of honeybees. Just this morning on Nextdoor there were two honeybee posts. One from a homeowner with an established hive in their walls that they want relocated safely by a beekeeper. And another from a beekeeper warning locals of her swarming hive and asking for a heads up so that she can go get them. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Jean in Newcastle

[prairiewindmomma]

I may go slice up some oranges and put them out to see if I get some activity. Maybe the trees are stressed and not pollinating in the usual ways? It has been a really cold wet spring—but we had a sudden sunny warm stretch and still nothing happened.

[BeachGal]

This past month I’ve seen bees and a few butterflies/moths while working outside and even an older dragonfly. Lots of birds, some very plump, possibly because everyone feeds them around here.

[theelfqueen]

We have birds... it's a little too early for bees here. Though I did see a few daffodils and tulips today so ... soon. 

[TechWife]

I’ve not seen bees yet. I’ve seen our little sparrows and the mourning doves. The hummingbirds haven’t come yet, but it’s really early for them. We have lots of bushes that are attractive to them on our street.