Eurasian Collared-Dove—Photo: Dow Lambert

January 2025 President’s Notes–Happy New Year

by Matt McCoy

If you still send and receive Christmas cards as we do, you may have noticed that some folks take the extra challenge of making their yearly highlight letters rhyme. The following was written particularly for two of our friends bold enough to attempt this. As I had written them a summer update letter, I instead chose to focus on bird trends (because who doesn’t want to hear about that at Christmas?). Should you choose to continue reading, spoiler alerts abound. On the bright side, after reading you won’t need to sit in on my January 3rd Backyard Bird Population Trends talk (a shameless plug). I’m sharing it with you as I’m a bit lazy in the holiday fog.

I carved out some time
to write a holiday rhyme.
I’m up against the clock,
working on my January bird talk.
What are backyard bird trends?
Which are headed off the deep end?
For some it might not be long
before we cease to hear their song.

It’s not all bad news
as I dig through the clues.
The results are quite mixed,
not all species have deep-sixed.
We used to have starlings and sparrows galore,
but over the last 50 years not anymore.

Eurasian Collared-Doves
are darkening the skies above.
The numbers are up for Anna’s hummers,
but rufous counts are a real bummer.
Cooper’s Hawks are making a killing
at the expense of Song Sparrow trillings.

Insect eaters are tanking,
while some seed-eaters are cranking.
No matter the scale,
Dark-eyed Junco numbers make me pale.
American Robins abound,
scarcely a siskin can be found.

Through it all we must strive
to keep our feathered friends alive.
Whether it’s backyard feeding
or places for breeding,
writing a letter,
or making backyard habitat better,
you can turn this around
and help their numbers rebound.