Birds that don't usually inhabit an area are being spotted -- robins in the dead of a New England winter. Gulls are swarming in places they don't usually swarm, and sometimes in strange formations. Or, birds are simply missing.

This is the most common report: the sudden disappearance of doves, finches, and other of our feathered friends. Across North America, those who take note of such things fret over the paucity of wildlife. Is it due to some hidden ecological disturbance? Is it a sign of the times?

"I've fed birds for almost fifty years and this year I've been so sad to see that the sparrows are not here and neither are the chickadees," lamented Alberta Brower of Leadville, Colorado. "I missed their singing and watching them play for this whole past year. It is very sad to me and my bird-feeding friends."

"I have been a truck driver for almost twenty years," adds Mary Margaret Stevenson from McKinney, Texas. "In the past five years I have noticed a similar event where birds are struggling to survive and do not have a natural source of food. I suspect that the ecosystem is on the verge of collapse but I am not a biologist and do not have any scientific proof of this. I am talking about birds that are outside of cities -- out in the country and small towns. I would like to know if there is any scientific proof."

Where are the birds?

One that is not on the missing list: crows.

While their populations have been greatly diminished in certain parts of the country (due to West Nile virus), when they are around, say those who write us, they are figuring more prominently and perhaps ominously into the terrain than ever.

At least, that was the overwhelming testimony of readers in response to a recent item we carried on the movement of birds and whether such had a spiritual component (seeing that birds so often are symbols of the spiritual). We were surprised that crows were on so many minds.

Years ago, we carried an article on how roving bands of huge black birds had descended on Tokyo, harassing, attacking, and apparently even stalking the populace. Those were the words used in an article in The Los Angeles Times.

The number of crows there had tripled, said the newspaper -- some measuring two feet, diving at children and in one case even starting a fire by picking up incense from a graveyard and dropping it on a nearby forest, to give us a feel for the eerie, if we need one.

Again, that was a secular report, which noted that in one case "hundreds of crows flew over a downtown office building in a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds."

We are hearing identical reports, but this time from the U.S.

"Regarding your 'birds' article, there has been a huge increase in the number of ravens living in the San Diego area," writes Donna Orth of Riverside. "I've noticed the past few years, especially during the autumn and springtime -- large flocks of this black, noisy bird flying over our house in the early evenings.

"Sometimes smaller bunches of them, at least thirty to forty, will congregate on a few houses here and there and just make their obnoxious presence be known. I know that they are smart birds and have even been sent by God to help certain people (including St. Benedict and Elijah) -- but I've seen them steal the babies of other bird species right out of their nests, and when I see hundreds of them flying overhead, darkening the sky at sunset, I can't help but wonder if they are an omen of some sort."

"All over the Bay Area, my children and I have noticed the lack of birds," noted another Californian, Lynn Bacon of San Francisco. "We used to go crazy with the blue jays, and we didn't see one all summer. The small birds are rare and the doves are gone. We are going mad over all the blackbirds or crows, as there are hundreds of these creatures in the trees making eerie noises. It seems that they raid the small nests resulting in less birds. It seems to me something very different is going on."

We must agree that they bear an ominous comportment, and that they often caw at what seem like peculiar times.

But does that mean a spiritual component? Crows and ravens (which are simply a large species of crows) figure even into Scripture, and not as a portent of evil. It was a raven that Noah sent to search for dry land; and brought meat and bread in 1 Kings 17:6; and that (as mentioned) is so often pictured with Elijah.

Yet, like owls, snakes, and black cats, the big aggressive black birds are often associated with darkness. We all envision  them as the pet of a witch, or cawing from the fence of a haunted castle. Their day is Halloween. Recall The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

And so it is that many are disheartened by the way these large dark birds are changing the current landscape.

Along the Mexican border, in southern Arizona -- writes a resident from there -- such birds are "infesting" the vicinity "everywhere you go, with wing-spans you wouldn't believe," says Bea Gordon. "I have a hearing problem, but my husband is awakened with their loud cawing even with the windows closed. I think even the cats are afraid of them. They'll get quail and other small birds, but leave the crows alone. There were crows alighted on a car outside a restaurant just yesterday, so many on about three automobiles that the alarms went off. The crows just sat there unmoved. They are unafraid, like they possess our town."

"Recently, my brother and I have noticed something very peculiar and definitely reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's movie," wrote Paul J. Brown of West Virginia. "About two weeks ago, I was walking our dog, Angel, in the evening when I heard several crows in the air. When I looked up, I saw what I estimated to be three to five hundred crows all flying together in an undulating wave. They landed in several very large pine trees within one block of our house and then suddenly took off back into flight. They repeated this behavior several times until I walked out sight of them.

"Upon my return, I could hear them in the neighbors' trees but could no longer see them due to it being so dark outside.

"Over the last two weeks, the 'flock' of birds has moved all around the house but has never landed on the property (thank God). On one occasion, I was walking Angel near some pine trees at the local grade school. As I walked by, I heard the sound of several crows above me and then, suddenly, the trees exploded with crows taking off in flight. I have to honestly admit to you that I was briefly terrified at the sound. It has made me desire to pray more often for spiritual as well as physical protection from the enemy.

"When I told my brother about what I have been seeing, he stated that last spring or early summer, he had just taken an evening walk (where he routinely prays the Rosary and Divine Mercy chaplets) and had just gotten home. He heard a few crows and looked up into the sky. He states he was mesmerized by the sight of perhaps thousands of birds, in groupings of fifty to two hundred, all flying from east to west. The birds, he says, were big and black, spanned the entire horizon, and were all traveling to the west.

"They made very little noise, considering the vast number of them, and his thought was that this seemed to portend some type of chastisement that was set to befall but without any specific knowledge of what it would be. He watched them fly for about half an hour as the sky continued to grow dark. He hadn't told anyone about his experience until I informed him about the black birds I was seeing."

Portent, or superstition? A call to build a spiritual "fence" around our homes?

As for the missing birds, some have speculated that the barrage of microwave towers and other electromagnetism has caused disorientation. Notes a maverick doctor named Joseph Mercola: "Like the tragedy of the disappearing honeybees, the disappearance of millions and millions of birds means that something has gone terribly wrong in our environment.

"There are many likely contributing factors for this observation, everything from pesticides to urban sprawl and pollution, but there is an extremely pervasive, silent killer out there that hardly anyone is mentioning: information-carrying radio waves.

"These radio waves are coming from your cell phones and other wireless technologies, and they have increased exponentially in the past three or four years alone. It’s already known that birds living near mobile phone base stations do not breed well. It’s also known that exposure to these frequencies causes disorientation in migratory birds. At the end of 2007 there were four billion cell phones on the planet."

Much of that is covered in Tower of Light. But is there not also a spiritual implication?

Birds that delight seem attracted to religious objects. In Assisi, two doves are almost always seen cuddling in the hands of a St. Francis statue. It is a dove, of course, that represents the Holy Spirit.

Wrote Mary Lou Stachnik of Tonawanda in Upstate New York, "My husband said that he had spotted about a dozen robins the other day. We have two statues of Our Blessed Mother in our back yard. One on one side of the yard and another in front of the right side of our garage which is on the other side of the yard. Both times, when my husband spotted them and when I spotted the one robin today, they were all around the statue of Our Lady which stands in front of the right side of our garage."

But back to the diminishing numbers.

Where are all the bees, and the fire flies?

"In addition to keeping honey bees I have been an avid birder for many years," says midwestern viewer Jacquie Nevinger. "Last summer was the most dismal yet. The usual summer tanager, scarlet tanager, catbird, American red start, and the Baltimore oriole did not come back to breed. The forest was strangely quiet. I miss the morning song the most."

While other species have at times taken their place, we get the point.

Can it really be microwaves, when someone in New York recently used organic food and attracted thousands of bees, right in that urban congestion?

Is it more the organic food?

One viewer planting herbs found herself surrounded suddenly by dozens of robins who seemed oddly unafraid and pecked the earth alongside her.

The prophetic component? 

There is the viewer who relates what is happening in nature to Matthew 24:32-33 ("Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things, know that he is near, at the gates").

"My husband witnessed a flock of birds in strange formation a few weeks back," says Linda McGarry. "It was not in the typical 'v' pattern. He saw a flock of birds flying and forming a perfect outline of a dragon. This is a true account and not exaggerated. I will ask, if it is important, as to which direction they were headed or what direction they were coming from. He said that the outline was so precise there was no mistaking question as to what it was -- and that the detail was remarkable, even down to the lines on the underbelly."

For your discernment.

That movie again! Near a hospital that's run by Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota [and that allows abortions], another viewer has noted several trees that are home to "hundreds and hundreds of crows." The hospital was co-founded by former Supreme Court Justice Harry Andrew Blackmun, who led the Court fight (during Roe) to legalize abortion. And so it is that this hospital terminates the unborn, despite its affiliation with Methodists and a sister Catholic church.

"I don't know why this is," says the viewer (who requested anonymity). "I have asked in the area why these crows are attracted to the trees in Rochester, and no one could answer my question."

[resources: Prophetic retreat, Los Angeles and Michael Brown retreat: Boston]

[see also: Sheep form baffling circle]