Hi Tom...I was thinking exactly the same...no birds except, for odd magpie and pigeon, and we have a very bird friendly garden....robins normally come into kitchen....live Kings Norton Tom
We are also missing smaller birds here. We have a single redstart regular in the garden, nothing else. The big birds are about, red kites and buzzards, and a kestrel has a regular perch on a tall post in the garden. But what we don’t see are corpses. I can understand the heat, and as mentioned, bird flu, but where are the bodies? We see some road kill, such as pheasants, but even that is not as prevalent as in previous times. Nature is making a few corrective adjustments perhaps to compensate for us humans.there has been a lot of dead birds (starlings) dropping in the fields and roads.
Most of my local sparrows and blackbirds have gone AWOL too, leaving the robins and tits. But I've noticed this happens every summer with them returning by autumn. My guess is that with food plentiful, they head out away from the traffic and humans to enjoy the greenery of summer. They come back when their natural food gets scarce because they know there's likely to be some around the human habitations.No small birds in the garden....
Is it me or have they migrated.. There have been no sparrows , black birds in my garden for weeks...
On reflection , I thought it was the severe hot weather... but now it's been a lot cooler and still no sign !
Alan my dog too runs after them. but he jumps in the air and try's to take off as wellI did not mention gulls, well they are usually, at this time of year, to be found among the tourists. They will turn up later but our dog chases them away. He does the same to pigeons but they soon return.
Quite agree Smudger, They stand on our chimney pot, or the cowl on top and call to us down the chimney. I'm sure they are reminding us to put some more food out for the birdsI have a great many varieties of birds in the garden though sadly there is one less thanks to a Sparrow hawk. I wish the pigeons would find somewhere else to do their coo-cooing. !