Study Finds Content-wide Shift in Bird Migration Timing

Long-billed Curlew by Nick Saunders.
Weather radar detects change on a continental scale
Fort Collins, CO & Ithaca, NY—A team of researchers has found that the timing of spring bird migration across North America is shifting as a result of climate change. The study, one of the first to examine the subject at a continental scale, is published in Nature Climate Change. The work was done by scientists at Colorado State University, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the University of Massachusetts.
Using 24 years of weather radar data, the study found that spring migrants were likely to pass certain stops earlier now than they would have 20 years ago. Temperature and migration timing were closely aligned, with the greatest changes in migration timing occurring in regions warming most rapidly. During fall, shifts in migration timing were less apparent. Read more



The effects from a pair of severe late-November snowstorms are still being felt across much of northern Michigan as work crews continue efforts to clear and groom snowmobile and ski trails.






