Grackels, Doves and Pigeons are gone

Sunday a week ago we had a horrendous hail and rain storm. At the same time high winds. One and one-half inches of rain in 15 minutes with hail the size of half dollars. The majority of the bird nests in the greenbelt trees were destroyed and the baby birds died because the hail stripped many leaves from the trees.

Then about two days later I noticed all the birds except the hummingbirds were gone. I walk the puppies at least twice a day on the greenbelt. The greenbelt is close to a half mile and there are no birds anywhere in our area since the hail storm. The storm was down our canyon probably about 5 miles on each side. I think we were right in the eye of the storm. A lot of lighting and thunder also. The birds may have left Sunday night and my mind just did not compute it until Tuesday.

Any comments or knowledge will be appreciated. Thank you. Sharon

Do you use Ebird.org at all? I just used their Explore Data option and saw some pretty recent sightings of Great-tailed Grackles and Mourning Doves. I don't know which dove you see most often, but there were several listed for your state on the bar chart.

Another option is try to locate your state's bird list. This is where a lot of bird news gets passed. There might be others in your state who have already posted something.
http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NVBD.html

This isn't the listserv itself for your state, but it contains copies of all the emails sent from it. It seems birdingonthe.net is a place where all states' lists are stored. That's how I learned about Iowa's list, but scrounging through it found the actual site to sign up on.

Neither site requires a sign up for viewing. I hope you find something.

A severe hail storm can cause heavy mortality locally - you might need to wait for new birds from outside the affected area to move in to colonise the currently-vacant territories.

Resin

Thanks Resin. Still no birds. And it was a terrible hail/wind storm.

Chillybean, I will check out that link. Thanks. Sharon

Sorry to hear this bad news. I do hope the birds will return soon.