Today I stood in the exact same spot I stood in seven years ago to make this photo of a White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis). And today, like then, I was standing in that spot as a participant in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

That December day in 2018, we counted birds from dawn to dark and saw probably a dozen white-throated sparrows, plus several individual birds of several other species of sparrow. Today we counted birds from dawn to dark, covered the same ground, and did not see a single sparrow!

Do I need to repeat that? Today my birding partner and I spent about 8 ½ hours doing nothing but looking for and counting birds in a national wildlife refuge and did not see a single sparrow.

The Audubon Christmas Bird Count has been going on for decades. It is one of the ways we know that bird numbers have declined at an alarming pace in recent years.

Why? Truly I tell you, we humans are their biggest enemy. Most humans do not mean to be. Indeed, many profess to love birds. Nevertheless…. we are the cause of loss of habitat, death by domestic cat allowed to roam free, poisoning their food supply with pesticides and herbicides, and more.