© Dave Pleshaw
A snake visits the carcass of a yellow-rumped warbler in West Vail. Dead warblers have been found all over Eagle County in recent days.
A snake visits the carcass of a yellow-rumped warbler in West Vail. Dead warblers have been found all over Eagle County in recent days.
"As I type this, it is being reported that we have almost a third fewer birds in the world than we did in 1970," Gessner writes. "Take a moment and consider this fact: our birds are disappearing."
Within weeks of the book's release, a massive die-off would begin to sweep the western United States, with an uncountable number of birds plummeting from the sky in mid-flight. Ornithologists say hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds have been lost over the past month.
Many are realizing now just how widespread the event has been, as social media has helped bird watchers and avian ecologists connect the dots.
Comment: It seems likely the early cold weather across Colorado simply compounded an already existing problem for most of these insectivorous birds - lack of food prey items due the record wildfires and the resulting extreme smoke cover during much of August.