A new report from scientists show birds are getting smaller. The cause? Rising temperatures from climate change. The study examined birds over a 40 year period. Birds‘ wings are getting longer, legs are getting shorter and their bodies are shrinking. Over 70,000 birds were measured from 52 different species, between 1978 and 2016. The study […]
Tag: migration
The climate crisis and the pain of losing what we love (commentary)
No place stays the same forever, and few of us want to live somewhere that is frozen in amber.… We seek the new, and the novel, and welcome improvements… with open arms. But we also need places to anchor us. Novelty is wonderful, but only when balanced with the familiar. And when those familiar [things […]
POLL: Should a “Lights Out” program be enforced to save migratory birds?
Imagine arriving to work and finding nearly 400 dead birds on the ground. That’s precisely what happened at the American National Insurance building in Galveston, Texas, on May 4, 2017. In a single night, hundreds of migrating birds slammed into the side of the skyscraper. All but three found on the ground died. The birds […]
Record-breaking 120,000 Ruffs counted in Belarus
Despite the cold weather, bird migration is in full swing. Millions of birds have started moving from their wintering grounds in Africa, stopping over in the cold tundra of Eurasia. At this time of the year, Turau Meadow in Belarus becomes a paradise for nature lovers – as many as 150,000 Eurasian Wigeon Mareca Penelope […]
Climate change driving birds to migrate early, research reveals
Migrating birds are responding to the effects of climate change by arriving at their breeding grounds earlier as global temperatures rise, research has found. The University of Edinburgh study, which looked at hundreds of species across five continents, found that birds are reaching their summer breeding grounds on average about one day earlier per degree […]
Champions of high-altitude flight
From the roof of Chiu monastery, perched high on its rocky hill, the water of Lake Manasarovar was cobalt, the surrounding hills rich ochre, luminous in the sunlight of a late autumn afternoon. With a shoreline 55 miles (90km) long, and at an altitude of more than 4,500 metres (15,000ft), this is one of the […]
Terns follow record warm temperatures in ‘shock’ migration
Eyebrows would be raised if American crocodiles, found on the southern tip of Florida, decided to relocate to New York’s Fifth Avenue or Moroccan camels suddenly joined the tourist throng outside Buckingham Palace in London. Yet this is the scale of species shift that appears to be under way in Alaska. In July, researchers in […]
British conservationist takes to the skies for 4,500-mile migration with swans
A British conservationist took to the skies in a motorised paraglider on Monday morning for the start of a daring 4,500-mile expedition across the Russian Arctic that will attempt to shed light on the decline of the UK’s smallest, shyest species of swan. For the next 10 weeks, Sacha Dench, 41, will act as a […]