As Wildfire Smoke Blots Out the Sun in Northern California, Many Ask: ‘Where Are the Birds?’

As many Westerners awoke this week to a sky so muted by smoke from raging wildfires that it looked like night, backyard bird watchers noticed something else: Silence at their bird feeders. Or worse yet, dead birds. Now some watchers are scrambling to find out what happened to bird populations in the region, which are already in major decline.