For the Birds

Today, let's once again minimize the news this week and focus on our bird banding trip last week. There is a bit of news at the end of the column if you have no interest in the Eastern bird migration. Birds are important for a number of reasons. For one thing they are the canary in the coal mine. Bird populations are down 30% since 1970. Insect populations have decreased by 70% in the same period. We drove all the way to SW Alabama for the banding with hardly a bug on our windshield. Bird banding is a way to track and assess the decline.