I woke up at 5:50 thinking, oh good, Wild Things went out twenty minutes ago. Second thought was: Did I call a Western tanager a yellow tanager? Perhaps a sign of my slightly addled brain these days.
You also went with me to my cancer appointments and you sat on the exam table so you could be close enough to hold my hand at each one. Who does that???!!! I love you Dr. Ramsey.
Kerry, I love your observation linking the migrants to the blooming apple tree. Like indigenous knowledge, photographer's knowledge is grounded in first-hand experience. But the birds are not late. The trees are blooming about 20 days earlier this year (see the phenology map at https://www.usanpn.org/data/maps/spring). While plants essentially have thermometers that add up the cumulative heat until they bloom -- and the insects respond -- migrant birds are hard-wired by day length. This produces the "ecological mismatch" of climate change. Your observation is the perfect illustration of the mismatch. Orange-crowned Warblers have arrived en masse the last few days - I hear them singing on every street this morning! - but Wilson's and Yellow Warblers, and tanagers and grosbeaks and vireos and flycatchers aren't really expected until May. See the great eBird bar chart here: https://ebird.org/barchart?r=US-WA-031&yr=all&m=
Thank you, Stephen, very interesting. I'm always so impressed by the depth and breadth of your bird knowledge. I saw four nuthatches in the walnut tree and the chickadees have been around awhile. Goldfinches arrived here over a month ago. I saw violet green swallows over at the Dungeness center, but a friend who tracks (and has boxes for) the swallows out on Hastings Road hasn't seen any there yet. I'm not shooting much these days or even getting out of the house that much while taking care of my wife, so my observations are confined to what's right around. Glad to hear the Orange-crowns have arrived.
I woke up at 5:50 thinking, oh good, Wild Things went out twenty minutes ago. Second thought was: Did I call a Western tanager a yellow tanager? Perhaps a sign of my slightly addled brain these days.
Considering what all you and your family are going through right now, those kind of blips can slide right by. So glad to hear Barbara is doing well.
I remember hearing you tell about Bill.
You also went with me to my cancer appointments and you sat on the exam table so you could be close enough to hold my hand at each one. Who does that???!!! I love you Dr. Ramsey.
Kerry, I love your observation linking the migrants to the blooming apple tree. Like indigenous knowledge, photographer's knowledge is grounded in first-hand experience. But the birds are not late. The trees are blooming about 20 days earlier this year (see the phenology map at https://www.usanpn.org/data/maps/spring). While plants essentially have thermometers that add up the cumulative heat until they bloom -- and the insects respond -- migrant birds are hard-wired by day length. This produces the "ecological mismatch" of climate change. Your observation is the perfect illustration of the mismatch. Orange-crowned Warblers have arrived en masse the last few days - I hear them singing on every street this morning! - but Wilson's and Yellow Warblers, and tanagers and grosbeaks and vireos and flycatchers aren't really expected until May. See the great eBird bar chart here: https://ebird.org/barchart?r=US-WA-031&yr=all&m=
Thank you, Stephen, very interesting. I'm always so impressed by the depth and breadth of your bird knowledge. I saw four nuthatches in the walnut tree and the chickadees have been around awhile. Goldfinches arrived here over a month ago. I saw violet green swallows over at the Dungeness center, but a friend who tracks (and has boxes for) the swallows out on Hastings Road hasn't seen any there yet. I'm not shooting much these days or even getting out of the house that much while taking care of my wife, so my observations are confined to what's right around. Glad to hear the Orange-crowns have arrived.