The birds are GONE from Houston and nobody notices.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

I was in Houston during Hurricane Ike.

My house was not damaged badly.

The only birds I hear are the yellow crowned night herons in the evening. They are big.

And sometimes a hawk.

There are NO little birds: No sparrows, chickadees, and such.

NO blue jays. No mockingbirds. All the grackles are in shopping center parking lots.

It's really spooky. I think they all got killed.

[Dover]

1. That must feel so strange...

I wonder if people even hear the birds....until they're gone.

Here's an article about the bird situation after Ike:

Where have all the fliers gone? Ask Ike
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/04/nation/na-ikebirds4

[jobycom]

2. Happened in Mississippi after Katrina, too.

The birds lost their infrastructure, too. No food, not nesting areas. It all came back, though.

[hobbit709]

3. You can have the grackles roosting in my tree if you want

The tree is over my driveway and my truck looks like a guanomobile. I can come back from the carwash and before I even get out of the truck-SPLAT!

[johncoby2]

4. Good catch!

We have a bird feeder out back and all I have seen are the squirrels since Ike.

[merci_me]

5. Just the opposite here

We feed the birds and squirrels and still have tons of birds, from the littlest finches and wrens to the large doves, purple martins and blue jays, to everything between. But the squirrel population isn't what it use to be, though we had seven in the yard begging for peanuts the other day, since the storm, usually it's just the same four. They come right to the door and bump the window. Sometimes I have to put my foot out to keep them from hopping in.

A friend is involved in possum rescue (yikes) and became involved in trying to rescue some of the hundreds of baby squirrels around here, whose nests came down with the trees. She tells me trying to feed baby squirrels is a VERY time consuming job, but now all they were able to rescue have been taken to the appropriate areas and set free. The four who hange out in our yard are all the same size. They were very small after Ike, but are thriving.

One thing we've noticed is a huge influx of butterflies since Ike. I wonder if they came from the more coastal areas. When they started showing up, a week or so after Ike, we went out and bought more of the plants the caterpillars feed on. They immediately began defoliating them, then going into the chrysalis stage, then more beautiful butterflies. Thankfully the weather is holding and the plants are all in bloom again, so the cycle repeats.

[MajorChode]

6. Put up a bluebird nesting box in your back yard

Bluebirds rely heavily on habitat provided by people since their native habitat has been mostly wiped out by humans and non-native house sparrows have taken over. It takes a bit of work to keep the house sparrows out, but NOW is the time of year to put up a nesting box. They are amazing creatures to watch. You have to spend a bit of effort keeping the house sparrows out of the nesting boxes, but it is well worth it.