I'm not sure that the actual rate of bird strikes is any greater today than it was in 1990 but I do know first hand that pilots report bird strikes more now than they did in 1990. I know at my airline in 1990 we would make a maintenance write-up and fill out a long hand form and comat it to flight safety. I would say the success of that program was about 50/50 at best. Captains and mechs would instead do a verbal debrief and the mech would go check it out and if nothing was broken, clean the mess up and no paperwork was filed. Then in the late 90's the FAA and the company started pressing operators for better data collection. In the earlier part of 2000 we went to a very primitive online reporting system. Now decades later and after going through LOSA's, having ASAP and FOQA the pilots resistive nature to paperwork and forms has been beaten out of them. Also the FAA and airlines have greatly improved the online filing process thus improving data collection compliance. My take on this, same amount of birds just more reports making it look like a rate increase. Hell, Wilbur had a bird strike in 1904 and just didn't fill out the paperwork.