A year ago I was birding in Churchill, Manitoba, listening to warblers sing, watching shorebirds court. This year six-foot snow drifts on the roads there make birding impossible. Much worse, the extremely late spring in northern Manitoba and across the eastern Arctic has made breeding impossible for many species of waterfowl, shorebirds, and songbirds. An entire class year has been lost for many species. An early return of non-breeders is predicted. You could be seeing birds returning south weeks ahead of schedule. To read about this go to a story on the Web site of the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper:

www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/big-chill-in-churchill-47992231.html

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Bird biology, Bird conservation, Bird migration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.