12/06/2025
I still circle above your fields, but the silence rising from below tells you something is breaking.
Since nineteen seventy, North America has lost more than three billion birds, nearly one third of its entire population. Insects, the foundation of that food web, have fallen by roughly seventy five percent. Songbirds now struggle to raise young because there is less to eat. And raptors like me, who depend on them, are disappearing in the same quiet decline.
A red tailed hawk is an apex predator and a biological indicator. I help control rodent populations and save farmers billions in crop damage each year. But every part of my survival rests on the links beneath me. A single chickadee needs nearly nine thousand caterpillars to raise one brood. When insects die, the birds starve. When the birds starve, I follow.
The collapse is subtle. Pesticides meant to tidy lawns kill the soil life that supports everything else. Monoculture grass becomes a silent desert. Native meadows become rare. The food chain weakens from the bottom long before predators feel the fall.
Fun Fact: More than ninety percent of North American songbirds feed their young almost exclusively on insects, making healthy insect populations essential for their survival.
If you want the skies to stay full, you start with the ground beneath your feet. Restore habitat. Grow native plants. Protect the soil. When insects return, songbirds return. When songbirds return, the raptors come back too.
Sources
Science (2019) – Rosenberg et al. study documenting the loss of 3 billion North American birds
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017) – Hallmann et al. research showing a 75% decline in flying insects
USGS & National Audubon Society – Data on raptor population trends and ecosystem dependence on insect-feeding songbirds
