Lessons In Lockdown Covid-19 – A Boon For Birds?

As Covid-19 lockdowns swept the world, there were numerous reports of how wildlife adapted to the new normal. Some of the more outrageous stories turned out to be as fake as a Trump White House briefing, but it was clear that with far fewer people and cars out and about, normally shy wildlife was quick to take advantage of the situation. Peter Ryan canvassed birders to try to piece together how birds responded to the unprecedented reduction in human activity.

- Peter Ryan

One of the first reports came from Chengdu, China, 1000 kilo-metres west of the epidemic’s origin in Wuhan. By the end of January 2020, this normally bustling metropolis of more than 16 million people was a ghost town. One of the few people brave enough to venture out was birder Steven Bonta, who reported his observations in a blog on ShanghaiBirding.com. Most birds in China have a tough time, being hunted or harassed by people. But within days of the self-imposed lockdown, a host of normally scarce or reclusive species was feeding out in the open, from White-browed Laughingthrushes and Chinese Grosbeaks to Plumbeous Redstarts and Rosy and Olive-backed pipits. And the Grey Herons and Little Egrets were no longer confined to an island in the centre of the river through the city, but happily feeding all along its banks.

As lockdowns were enforced beyond China, sightings of urban wildlife proliferated almost as fast as the virus. Most were of mammals – coyotes in downtown Chicago, wild boars in Barcelona and pumas in Santiago. And it wasn’t just in towns. Black bears in Yosemite National Park came out into open meadows more often after the park was closed to the public and a pride of lions sleeping on a tar road in the Kruger National Park attracted media attention. Even some marine mammals took advantage of the situation, with a South American sea lion exploring a town in southern Peru and orcas seen closer to Seattle than is normally the case. But it wasn’t all good news. In Thailand, hundreds of crab-eating macaques went on the rampage as the handouts from tourists to the Lopburi ‘monkey temple’ dried up. And in Nara, Japan, the habituated sika deer left the parks to wander the city streets in search of food.