Imagine a bird with a caloric budget of x.  In order to hit that mark you can’t exceed x in regards to the calories that you burn.  If you do you’ll be stiffer than the frozen ground that surrounds you.  Of course if you’re the lucky bird (scientists might say genetically superior) that has banked enough body fat during your daily forays you might just be able to beat the odds.  Those odds of course are heavily weighed on the side of the Grim Reaper.  Severe winters like the kind the Northeast has bestowed upon us, combined with heavy food-masking snows will surely write the epitaph for millions of songbirds before the season closes.  Single-digit nights force these birds to burn precious fat reserves as the need to forage longer and harder drive their will to survive. 

Chickadee in Winter

Of course this can all be a windfall to the out-of- control feral cat population that waits in ambush to feast on all those weakened songbirds.  Add to the equation native land-based mammalian predators and dive-bombing raptors, and an all too stressed existence just got worse.  What are even more frightening if you’re a migrating songbird are the native fruits and berries they consume have been out-competed by the non-native, invasive species whose nutritional content, especially fat content, is less.  I hate to tell you this but it gets worse.  Diseases such as botulism, avian cholera, salmonellosis, and the emerging West Nile virus can also have significant population impacts.  Disease can sometimes be a welcome euthanasia for birds that just don’t have the stomach for all these obstacles.  I’m sorry to report, if it hasn’t become intuitively clear, that man is the cause for most of the above.  One out of four birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act are in trouble.  In the majority of cases Bipedal Primatic Cancer Cells is the causative agent that has metastasized throughout its host – planet earth. 

Junco In Snow

The greatest threat our species has inflicted on songbirds deals with habitat fragmentation and all to often complete habitat destruction.  With development has come a tidal wave of secondary impacts, e.g., pesticide poisoning, toxic contamination, mortality in response to collisions with human structures (cars, buildings, homes, cell towers, tension wires, etc.) and close-phased wires which have alone cause 174 million deaths annually via electrocution.  After all that gloom and doom how would you like to play a game of “Be the Songbird” – doesn’t sound that fun right about now does it? Let’s try anyway.  You ready – here we go. 

Try and digest this analogy – here you are on a cold winter’s morn hankering for a Star Bucks Caramel Macchiato.  So you get up from the sofa put on your winter coat and head out for a java fix.  Of course if you’re a songbird like a junco, you’d be emerging from underneath a pine tree without the luxury of forced hot air and four walls.  That’s okay because it was only 4 degrees last night threatening your internal thermostats ability to maintain metabolic requirements (in many species of songbirds this is 0°F). 

Cooper Hawk Devouring Seagull

You and your fifteen or so buddies were spending a sleepless rest taking turns huddled together vying for the middle position - one eye open for that damn fox who comes buy every once and while looking to make you late night finger food.  But back to you: You’re leaving your house, walking towards your car.  As you’re fumbling through your pockets for keys, suddenly you feel a set of razor-sharp talons rip into your jugular while hoisting you away to some undisclosed roost to be quietly dismembered by a Pterodactyl-like raptor.  Sorry about that graphic representation but reality is reality, and that’s pretty much what it’s like for a white-throated sparrow whose daily bread is earned each and every day in our backyards.  The day before I wrote this piece I witnessed a Cooper’s hawk swoop from the heavens and clip the fleeing wing of a tree sparrow.  He missed his mark by two inches.  This gave the recipient a vital second chance to escape.  The hawk pounced from a standing position back towards its prey, again hitting it but not square.  When the feathers lifted, a lonely hawk stood rejected while all too many vitally wasted calories burned out through the Krebs Cycle – just another day at the office for these two.  To some, this may seem like a chance encounter for me to have bore witness.  Let me assure you it is not.  This is a daily occurrence in my backyard.  The duration between attacks may be hours; but if I’m photographing and watching for any period of time this scenario is commonplace. 

The advantage that white-throated sparrows, juncos and tree sparrows have that my comparison didn’t accurately portray is that they forage in flocks.  Interspecific flocks can be an effective anti-raptor tool that protects the individual.  Many eyes make for a relatively safe breakfast but you never know when your lottery ticket is going to be called. 

Chickadees and titmice will often be seen at the same time picking seeds off hanging feeders as long as their placed in the protective cover of trees or adjacent to them.  You rarely see them ever foraging naturally in the open country.  The birdseed I’ve spread out on the lawn does well to attract sparrows, cardinals and jays but rare is the sight of a chickadee or titmouse.  Wood peckers feel the same way.  I can put suet out against a tree, and within hours I’ll have red-bellied, downy and hairy woodpeckers feasting away.  If I place the same suet on a log out in the open they almost never return.  Access to sufficient food and cover is no doubt essential in permitting songbirds to survive extended periods of cold weather.  Birds are endothermic, (warm blooded like us), and the ones that exist in colder climates have the ability to drop their body temperatures 3 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit as a means of energy conservation.  Fluffing up feathers as temperatures declines and changing patterns of blood flow, directing blood away from the body surface is another efficiency measure deployed by wintering songbirds. 

Regardless of the method used to survive songbirds always gain my respect whenever I chance upon them in winter.  Their arduous lives provide a constant reminder to shut my mouth when I think life is tough.