MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • May 19, 2024
We know that average temperatures have been steadily rising since the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1850. The warming leads to springs with earlier appearances of leaves, caterpillars, frogs calling, and hundreds of other biological phenomena. One would expect that migratory birds accelerate their arrivals onto their breeding grounds to keep pace with the changing ecology. Over the past 20 years, several studies have appeared that used archival bird records over decades to see if arrival dates are getting earlier. Data for Maine show relatively few examples of accelerated arrival dates. ~ Herb Wilson