🧡SWEET MAMA SQUIRREL (and - drama in the back yard!)

Squirrels are about all we get, these days. It's very depressing, and I don't know why it's happening. Everywhere we go, the bird count is nearly zero, at a time when the waters should be teeming with different species. The Blakeburn Lagoon is practically empty, when we used to see shovellers, ring-necks, wigeons, SWANS. . .and even a sandhill crane and an OTTER, to name only a few (red-tailed hawk?). Why have the birds abandoned so many places? Why is it happening everywhere? Only Burnaby Lake still has birds, but mostly geese, a few mallards, and hungry blackbirds. My darker senses tell me that Something is coming, maybe an earthquake, or something even worse, because birds have been known to have an acute spidey-sense for these things. I want them back! Birds are a huge part of my mental health, and helped me get through the worst of the pandemic - although they were already thinning out two years ago. With all the food I put out, I should be attracting them like a magnet, but all we see these days is fat squirrels and the odd finch at the window feeder. Will they EVER come back? Where are they? Why are they doing this?