Opinion: We Must Count the Number of Hyde Park's Small Birds

A discussion in two separate internet forums generated hundreds of comments, some of them heated, Monday and Tuesday of this week ... in both Hyde Park's "Good Neighbors" Google forum; and in the Facebook group "Chicago Ornithological Society".

The main questions debated and discussed have been:

-- Has the population of small birds in Hyde Park / Kenwood shrunk to an unacceptably low number

-- If the population of small birds has shrunk to a small fraction of what was in Hyde Park prior to about 1990 ... what are the main reasons

-- Is any group of people (UChicago academic researchers; or citizens; or both) going to step up to:
-- keep an annual count/estimate of the number of small birds in Hyde Park
-- propose remedies to increase the number of small birds, presuming remedies are needed

If any reader who agrees the numbers of small birds in Hyde Park/ Kenwood is something that residents need to address ... What is your suggested action ... and do you want to volunteer your time for the achievement of that action?

I want to editorialize on one point: Even if small birds nationally, in most species, are thriving in number ... that does not imply that a count of those varieties of small birds within the boundaries of Hyde Park and Kenwood, will show those same species to be thriving in number here in Hyde Park. This should be obvious, but the discussion impels me to state that directly.

If small-bird populations in Hyde Park are in fact shrinking ... that is something that everyone in the community should be concerned with, just as we are concerned with the everywhere-present consequences of climate change. Even if the shrinkage in bird numbers happens to be localized to Hyde Park ... birds bring such joy to everyone, that their diminution in our community life here in Hyde Park, is something everyone should want to help reverse.