Canaries . . . and Carolina wrens, and red-bellied woodpeckers . . . in the climate coal mine
As Joan Wickersham’s husband records, with alarm, the effects of climate change on birds, the natural world is shifting in other ways (“Birdwatching with 20-20 hindsight,” Opinion, May 29). In the 1850s, Henry David Thoreau kept meticulous notes on the dates when common trees and plants in Concord flowered, leafed out, developed seeds, and then shed fruit and leaves.
Biologist Richard Primack has compared Thoreau’s records with the behavior of trees and flowers in the present time. Teams of volunteers (including me) at the Arnold Arboretum and Mount Auburn Cemetery now keep track of the same species that Thoreau studied. Leaf-out times, for instance, are 10 to 14 days earlier than in Thoreau’s time.
While some insects emerge earlier, migrating birds are not responding as quickly to our warming climate, especially those that travel long distances. This means that the insects on which birds rely — for sustenance and food for their fledglings — may already be gone when birds arrive.
Why should we care about these changes? Because we depend on the delicate web of birds, plants, and insects that pollinate the plants that feed us. And because, like Wickersham, we fear for the world our grandchildren will inherit if we don’t act now to reverse the earth’s warming.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/canaries-and-carolina-wrens-and-red-bellied-woodpeckers-in-the-climate-coal-mine/ar-BB150MVT?ocid=anaheim-ntp-feeds
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