Saturday, 5 December 2020

You Can Only Push Birds So Far North, Before Things Start to Turn South!

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Once birds get to the North Pole, everywhere subsequent is in a Southerly direction. It has been reported that 120,000 bird watchers in 48 countries, have established that European birds have been pushed, an average of 28km further North, over last 3 decades (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/03/atlas-reveals-birds-pushed-further-north-amid-climate-crisis-aoe). Climate change appears to be the main cause of this alteration in range. One of the species involved is the Little egret, a bird that only started appearing in Wales, a few decades ago. Global warming seems to have rather different effects on the birds that normally inhabit the forests, compared to those associated with fields. The trouble is, that bird species (as other animals) only have limited scope to deal with climate change. After a point, only extinction beckons.

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Birder's Bonus 241

Noted a Curlew ( Numenius arquata ) on the Loughor estuary at Bynea.