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This autumn, cardinals and blue jays will snatch orange crab apples from twisted branches. Robins and catbirds will compete for plump, vermilion winterberries. And warblers will make entrees of waxy blue berries hanging from feathery junipers.
These are the lucky birds—those that find forage as temperatures drop. In recent decades, as development and agricultural clearing have eaten up fields and forests, the populations of some common songbirds have fallen dramatically. Purple finches, a dusky-rose habitué of backyard…