Book Title:  Silence of the Songbirds:  How We Are Losing the World's Songbirds and What We Can Do to Save Them

Author: Bridget Stutchbury

Publishing Company: Harper Perennial

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 256

ISBN:  978-0-00-639577-5

Reviewed By:  Deborah Ground Buckner (Kansas City Correspondent – USA)

Backyard bird watching is a passion at my house.  From the first year we continued our winter filling of the bird feeders through a late spring and spotted an Indigo Bunting, we became hooked on year-'round feeding.  Last year, my daughter's high school biology project involved filling feeders with different types of seed and tracking the number and frequency of identified visitors.  The sight of Goldfinches, Cardinals more Indigo Buntings, White-capped Sparrows and, best of all, a pair of mallard ducks, kept us at the windows constantly.  Through the summer, our backyard has become the place all the parent birds bring their fledglings to teach them to eat by themselves.  We have had giggling fits—but compassionate giggling fits—while watching a poor mother starling working frantically to feed the four fledglings following her, wings flapping, beaks opening wide, and voices singing their own unique chorus of “feed me now!”

When I saw Bridget Stutchbury's Silence of the Songbirds:  How We Are Losing the World's Songbirds and What We Can Do to Save Them, the title immediately caught my interest.  A world without songbirds would provide a dismal silence and a dreary lack of color.  More importantly, as a species dwindles from existence, it sends a warning signal of the environmental dangers that may lead to many others suffering from the same fate.

Stutchbury relates the story of the use of canaries in coal mines.  The birds were the miners best tool in determining whether the mines were safe or threatened by the presence of dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.  The canaries, with a rapid heart rate, are highly sensitive to the gas.  If a canary succumbed to the colorless, odorless gas, it provided a warning to the miners to vacate the mine before they were also affected.

Similarly, the near-obliteration of the American bald eagle in the1960s provided a harsh warning of the effects of the pesticide DDT in the environment.  The pesticide affected the reproductive hormones of the birds, causing them to lay eggs with very thin shells that could not survive to hatch.  This all-important warning came in time to lead to the banning of DDT.  Now, the eagle population is soaring again, and other species are safer thanks to the alert.

In a series of chapters, each of which reads more like an independent essay, Stutchbury identifies some of the hazards facing migratory songbirds today.  Bright lights at night in cities and even smaller communities create a disorienting menace to migratory birds, and over-foresting of rain forests lead to a loss of habitat.  Predators, such as domestic cats allowed to roam outside, reduce the numbers.  As bird populations are reduced, the performance of their critical ecological roles is also reduced.  Insect populations soar without their natural predators, crop yields reduce without the birds serving as pollinators, bacteria thrive without the scavenger birds necessary to clean up the decay of nature.

Stutchbury includes advice on what can be done to protect migratory bird populations by protecting the world's forests through recycling wood and paper products.  Campaigns to turn out lights at night, keeping cats inside, buying organic produce and avoiding the use of chemicals can all offer hope for re-building bird populations.

The book is not all gloom and doom and environmental preaching, however.  Throughout its pages, Stutchbury provides fascinating information on various bird species, their habits and their patterns of migration.  It is a lovely read for anyone who is hooked on bird-watching or just wants to know more about our winged neighbors.  There are many life lessons than can be learned and taught through watching birds.  As Stutchbury concludes, “their fascinating behaviour reminds us of our own lives:  moving to a new home, finding food, choosing partners, and the challenges of raising children.”  This was certainly our experience in observing the harried mother starling trying to fill four hungry mouths!