Where I live, 200ya they wrote about how large flocks of geese would literally darken the sky. There most certainly are far less birds than there were 200ya, but even 30 years ago there were still, you know, flocks of birds. Flock of birds now is like single digits. I have lived here, rural, since 2018, and there's hardly any birds. Amazingly, I saw a gathering of blue heron not long ago, about of dozen adults. That's insane numbers. But wait... there should be thousands of them. Get out of here with your, "they're still out there." Yeah, a few, I guess.