I'm sure the increased use of corn feeding/baiting is just one of many factors.
But it is a factor, and a factor we have a choice to either increase its detriments,
or reduce those detriments.
It is noteworthy that the decline in bobwhite quail has coincided with the rise in deer feeders doting the landscape.
If a single kernel of aflatoxin corn can kill an adult turkey, would presume even a tiny speck of cracked corn could kill a much smaller bird? Perhaps the increased use of "feeders" everyone is also a contributing factor in the decline of songbirds?
In my youth, not only were quail abundant, but we also had more songbirds, and spring, summer, and fall air was more full of their pleasant sounds. How many people on this site now have never heard the song of a meadowlark? The meadowlark's disappearance has been right along with the bobwhite quail's.
After clicking, scroll down to hear the sounds . . . . . .
The sweet, lazy whistles of Eastern Meadowlarks waft over summer grasslands and farms in eastern North America. The birds themselves sing from fenceposts and telephone lines or stalk through the grasses, probing the ground for insects with their long, sharp bills. On the ground, their...
www.allaboutbirds.org
An emphatic, whistled bob-white ringing from a grassy field or piney woods has long been a characteristic sound of summers in the Eastern countryside. It’s quite a bit harder to spot a Northern Bobwhite, as the bird’s elegantly dappled plumage offers excellent camouflage. They forage in groups...
www.allaboutbirds.org