#maybe its not even the deet but whatevers in the canada ash in the water hurting the hummingbirds

[gelastocoridae]

Digging through my bird guide books to help myself identify the group of little gray birds I briefly saw in Littleton and I accidentally find out the reason we haven't seen any cliff swallows at the wildlife rehab this year (they're adorable, we had plenty last summer) is because the nonstop cooler rainstorms and flash floods have likely starved their babies to death :((((

I've been theorizing the constant rainstorms and resulting swarms of mosquitoes/massively increased bug spray usage/sparse and late flower blooming were the reason for the dozens of hummingbirds we've gotten, many of which seemingly developed new neurological symptoms and passed away without explanation (developmental problems from contaminated insects, runoff, and nectar plus lack of flowers -> parents abandon the babies -> good Samaritans bring the doomed babies to us?). Plus other strange things like fledgelings going into torpor in random places in the daytime and dying from starvation.

We've had to deal with an insane amount of parasite bugs on our birds this summer, too. Countless birds of all ages absolutely infested with mites. Dozens and dozens of birds with flatflies, which most of us had never seen before, but now live in constant fear of carrying them like ticks to our pet birdies at home or finding them on the other animals in our care because they're so damn fast you blink and you'll never see them again (this is a Diptera hate blog for good reason).

I wonder whether the reason we've gotten more of some less common species is because they're also getting desperate from the storms and finding trouble instead of food/safe nesting areas. Most of the ones whose rescuers didn't try to keep them at least healed and were able to return to the wild. I hope they are wiser for it and survive to breed another year.

It would really suck if this summer's freak weather seriously impacts these and other bird populations in their winter homes. I'm kind of dreading next summer already ;-; here's to hoping the species diversity of our baby birds doesn't crash next year.