No hope, duuude. No hope, duuude.

Declines in biodiversity are nothing new, but a new tally of bird species is depressing the hell out of bird watchers, who are calling what is happening a "walmartization of the skies."

"Also, it points to the same conclusion as the breeding census: The nation is losing vast numbers of birds - about 432-million among the 20 common declining species - and from every type of habitat.
Northern pintail ducks breed in "America's duck factory, " Butcher said, the small lakes and ponds in Canada and the northern United States.

These have been drained to make room for wheat and corn fields, he said, and the pintail population has dropped 77 percent in the United States and 96 percent in Florida since 1967.
Another duck species in decline, the greater scaup, summers in tundra degraded by global warming. The black skimmer's population has fallen because the birds nest on increasingly crowded Florida beaches.

Pasture species seem especially vulnerable, Butcher said. Pesticides and herbicides have killed the insects and weeds these birds eat. Frequent mowing leaves them without enough time to raise their brood, Butcher said, and "a lot of eastern meadowlark nests get cut down while they are still full of either eggs or young."

About collared doves, an introduced species that is thriving, Butcher says ""They have sort of a mournful, three note call ... What I think of is: 'No hope, duuude. No hope, duuude.' "

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