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Climate change moves birds north

By tfk on March 15, 2007.

The Journal World reports that warm weather is bringing unusual birds to town. Remember that before you call climate change deniers "bird brains." Birds are smarter.

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It has worked the other way, too. A few years ago a colder winter drove some birds farther south. I saw a common redpoll at my feeder. My neighbor was glad, because when she told her father, a top-notch birder, she had seen one, he replied must be mistaken, they don't come this far south.

Another change is with turkey vultures. In Maine, a birder told me that you know you've gone south far enough to be in Massachusetts if you spot a turkey vulture. A year later I pointed one out to him (and we were still in northern Maine); in recent years I've seen even more there. I think maybe in this case the increasing abundance of road kill is a factor.