-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: January 10, 2007 9:13:03 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Weather or Not
Wacky weather throws birds and bees off balance
Cheryl Cornacchia
CanWest News Service
Saturday, January 06, 2007
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?
id=fba974c9-1ebb-43da-880b-5da9b7edf967&k=97303
MONTREAL -- If you think you're confused by this winter's warmer
than usual weather, take a moment to ponder our feathered friends
and furry neighbours.
While this season's record-breaking temperatures have offered
humans a welcomed reprieve, the unseasonal weather has played havoc
with the lives of birds and animals.
The balmy winter weather has tricked many members of the wildlife
community to alter their usual migration schedules, sleeping habits
and feeding and breeding patterns.
Now, wildlife biologists, ornithologists and zoologists are
concerned that the survival of some of these birds and animals
could be threatened by the winter months ahead.
Among the anomalies reported in Eastern Canada:
-The Canada goose, which usually migrates south, staying put. An
annual Montreal Christmas bird count found an all-time high number
of the water fowl, 2,832, roosting on the open waters of the St.
Lawrence.
-Raccoons and skunks foregoing their shorter but still important
hibernation period and, burning up fat stores that they will need
if and when a January or February deep freeze arrives.
-In Montreal, the eastern gray squirrel is feeding instead of
nesting and getting fatter. At the same time, it has been joined by
the Fox squirrel, a bigger and brown-reddish colored squirrel with
a more southern range.
-Possums, a marsupial associated with the southern United States,
have been spotted in southern Quebec.
"There's a pile of stuff going on," said Lynn Miller, a Montreal
wildlife biologist based at Le Nichoir, a bird refuge in
Hudson."There will be winners and losers," she added.
Miller recently had to euthanize a great blue heron because it
couldn't stand up. Frostbite had destroyed its toes. The species
usually migrates to Florida and other sunny climes for winter.
"The weather has been so warm, he thought he could stay," she said.
"It was bloody awful."
With little snow, the white-tailed deer is having no trouble
finding food this winter and, as a result, the species will be more
successful come breeding season.
Coyotes, foxes and many birds of prey are also well positioned with
a plentiful food supply. Turkey vultures, a bald-headed species
usually seen much further south at this time of year, is now
thriving in Canada.
In southern Ontario, spring-like temperatures have dandelions
blooming and even frogs, flies and bees are out.
At the Ojibway Nature Centre in Windsor, Ont., people are reporting
seeing frogs, snakes and turtles, said naturalist Paul Pratt.
Pratt says a sudden plummet in the mercury could be a killer.
"The biggest danger is a real sudden change in temperature. You
don't want to go from plus 13 C one day to minus 20 the next,"
Pratt said Friday.
"You want to give them a chance to crawl back in their holes and
get in the burrows and hollow logs or wherever they want to go when
the weather's cold."
Montreal Gazette, with file from Windsor Star
© CanWest News Service 2007
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