To better understand the processes that may lead to potentially avoidable extinction events, it is important to identify the influence of change in the communities at the local scale. We compiled bird lists from a field station with an artificial wetland system and a history of drastic changes in land use in the Colombian Andes. This data expands from 1974 to 2018. Our assessment uses three criteria to recognize local extinction: looking at the short-term (last 5 years) variation, a comparison between baseline and the most recent data, and the time in between. These criteria also allowed us to quantify substantial colonization and recolonization events. We found that 5.9% of previously recorded species had become extirpated, 5.2% can be considered probably extirpated, and 6.7% are possibly extirpated. Moreover, there was an important turnover in foraging guilds which implies a transition in the community's functional diversity. The loss of artificial wetlands in addition to the local afforestation plan in the mid-90s at the study site likely constitute the leading factors for the observed gains and losses of species in the agroecosystem. We highlight the importance of multicriteria assessment in community-level studies to distinguish between an apparent persistence and an actual extirpation event over the long term. Artificial wetlands and agroecosystems should be better studied as they could complement regional conservation targets.