This spring, the dawn chorus sounds different. In the dark hours before sunrise, my yard whistles, chips, hoots, and trills with deafening birdsong. The birds caroling at my home in Virginia — robins, mockingbirds, warblers, cardinals, titmice, finches — sound more numerous, boisterous and energetic than in past years, all singing raucously at the same time, like a poetry slam where everyone’s reading at once.

Have the lockdowns resulted in more abundant birds? Is our behavior changing theirs, making them bolder, louder, more present in our yards and parks, or is the birdsong just more audible because there’s less ambient roar from cars, overhead jets, construction?

Or is it we who have changed, taking more notice of bird life now that our own lives have slowed?

The studies aren’t in on the impact of shifting human patterns on bird activity during the pandemic. It will most likely take years before we have firm data. But the anecdotes, from all around the world, are intriguing. My friends in Australia and New Zealand tell me that since the lockdowns began, flocks of spine-tailed swifts have swelled, more fairy-wrens are popping up at their bird baths and kereru — big pigeons that swallow large fruit — are perching on their back fences. “The lack of people is indeed being noticed by the wildlife,” said Darryl Jones, an ecologist at Griffith University specializing in the interaction between humans and wildlife. He points to the pair of very rare glossy black cockatoos that showed up on the vacant Griffith campus near Brisbane, along with more than 50 koalas in the nearby forest.

When the lockdowns were in full force, birds appeared to be thriving with the dip in noise and light and air pollution, along with emptied-out parks and public gardens that are usually a crush of people and traffic congestion. Here in the United States, ravens normally on edge around their nests in Yosemite were more relaxed, even playful in the empty parking lots, and endangered piping plovers had the beaches to themselves. One friend of mine from New York wrote to say, “There seem to be birds everywhere in the city, more than usual, having parties in the bushes, quarreling, singing.”

Roadkills have most likely been down, the naturalist and conservationist Kenn Kaufman told me. “In open country, they have not been happening at nearly the same rate,” he said, “sparing roadside species like meadowlarks and redheaded woodpeckers.” There have also been far fewer bird strikes by airplanes, decreasing kills of kestrels, killdeer, and other species.

The reduction in noise may have a more subtle but still beneficial effect. Birds sing in the early morning to mark their territory and attract mates. Their efforts, however, often coincide with the roar of early morning rush hour. A few years ago, scientists from the University of Florida found that noisy highways prevented tufted titmice and northern cardinals from hearing alarm calls from fellow birds, warning of dangerous predators in the area, putting them at greater risk of becoming prey.