Hope and the Avian Migration Crisis

Black-capped Chickadee. White-throated Sparrow. Common Loon. In 1964, at just four years old, Gordon Atkins recorded his first ever bird list. “It was a bittersweet moment,” says Atkins upon discovering his old list. “But it gave me pause to reflect on my experience as a birder — from a list of common backyard birds in the Northwoods of Canada where I grew up to leading tours all over North America.”  

Since Atkin’s first list, the skies of North America have grown quieter. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, since 1970, North America has lost nearly 3 billion wild birds, largely attributed to habitat loss driven by human-driven climate change. 

Birds are especially vulnerable during migration periods. A 2024 article in the International Journal of Avian Science states that mortality during spring migration is on average 6.3 times higher than during stationary periods. Disease, exhaustion, and food shortages at critical stopover locations (associated with extreme weather and wind conditions) drive this rate up. Climate change contributes to migration dangers as well, with the Carbon Brief database noting that 77% of extreme weather events are more likely or severe because of climate change.

Based at Camp Au Sable in Grayling, Michigan, Atkins, now 66, studies gull behavior and ecology. Extreme weather events, he says, like flash floods, droughts, intense storms, and wildfires are becoming less rare and more normal. “We’re adding energy to the system. You get hotter hots, colder colds, wetter wets, and dryer dries.” And if these big storms hit during migration or nesting seasons, he notes, they can devastate bird populations.

The ring-billed gull, Atkins’s bird of study, has been migrating up to six weeks earlier in recent years. As a result, breeding and egg incubation occur much earlier than usual, exposing eggs to freezing nighttime temperatures. For the gulls, increasingly sporadic weather events dramatically reduce hatchling survival rates. In the last six years, Atkins’s gull colony has had three years of 0% breeding success, two years of moderate success, and only one year of excellent breeding. 

But ring-billed gulls are adaptable and resilient, able to adjust to new, man-made habitats even as their old stomping grounds cave to human activity. Other birds aren’t so lucky. Long distance migrators, including songsters like warblers, tanagers, and meadowlarks, are among the most impacted and least inclined to adapt their migration timelines. False springs kill insects and interrupt fruit bearing plants — food sources these exhausted migratory birds heavily depend on. Wetlands are also drying up, leaving waterfowl with fewer habitat options and at greater risk of contracting a deadly virus in the wetlands that remain. 

Hope, eBird, and Citizen Science

Experts believe there is hope in data. Since its inception in 2002, Cornell’s citizen-science platform eBird has radically altered how scientists — and the average birder — collect and understand bird data, allowing anyone to report bird sightings.

Hobbyist birders are now part of something larger, equipping scientists with mass amounts of data critical to monitor changes in migratory patterns and population sizes. Just this past May, a Science study based on eBird data found that three quarters of bird species in North America are plummeting across their ranges.

Restore Habitats with Native Plants 

Migration is by far the most stressful time in a bird’s life — even without climate change related food insecurity and deadly weather events. If you’re a birder, keep an eye out for our avian friends. You can make your own list or sign up for a citizen science effort like eBird. 

And if you’re not much for birding, there’s still plenty to be done to aid our avian friends during their long journeys across continents and oceans. In addition to climate change, the destruction of natural habitats contributes to the severe decline in bird populations. Planting native species can help, and that’s where you come in. Support the Canopy Tree Project and help Earth Day continue to plant trees and restore natural environments around the globe — for us humans, our bird friends, and every little creature in between.

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