Hearts Warmed
As Arctic gulls not seen in Massachusetts since the 1800s delight birders in Plymouth:
Ivory gulls normally stay well above Newfoundland, living on Artic ice where they follow whales and polar bears to feed on the scraps and carcasses they leave behind after making a kill.
Sheesh. I hope that doesn’t mean polar bears are moving in. Plymouth is just 10 miles away, and my house is on the main Arctic migration route. Better keep the kids in. Especially with the record cold and heavy snowfalls we’ve been having.
Until this year, the last report of a fully mature ivory gull in Massachusetts was in the 1800s. Three immature birds were seen in the 1940s. In 1976, another immature bird had been spotted in Rockport.
Russell Graham of Dallas is flying in Friday for a three-day visit. He’s hoping the gull will still be in town when he arrives.
”The ivory gull is one of a handful of birds that every birder dreams of seeing but almost no one has.,” he said. “This isn’t a dream that’s confined to North America. There is also an immature bird in France that is causing the same reaction there. There are a couple of places where you can go in the summer and expect to see one but they are distant and expensive – Svalbard on Spitsbergen, Norway and Pond Inlet on Baffin Island, Canada.
“I never thought I would have the chance to see one and I can’t pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Either that, or if it keeps cooling off, he can see them in Texas. Patriot-Ledger article oddly fails to address the issue of long-term prospects for rare Arctic birding opportunities in Massachusetts under global warming.
via Malkin, John Kerry chides skeptics, laughs at the weather while advancing the warmalist agenda in DC. If he makes back to the ecofriendly Louisburg Square manse for the weekend, he might want to borrow someone’s Prius for the ride south down Route 3 to enjoy the Arctic avifauna.
Meanwhile, via Powerline, snowy owls moving south. The AP quotes experts saying it must be overpopulation up north … sounds like an overly healthy northern ecosystem … but I dunno, sounds like maybe it’s just snowier down here. John says the Name Is a (frikkin) Clue(bat).
Welcome Powerline, Small Dead Animals etal. Always good to see you. When the Washington Post starts having fun with Al Gore, you reckon that’s a turn of the warmening worm? In other business, here’s a Swedish history lesson, with incoming lefties helpfully explaining that collaborating with Nazis is OK as long as you call yourself neutral. Yeah, I don’t get it either, but then I never understood why they’re so soft on people who would saw their heads off on video, drop of a hat.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:32 am Comments (4) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009
4 Responses to “Hearts Warmed”
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January 28th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I hadn’t realized Al Gore was in the area. :-)
January 28th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Ya know,
I have yet to hear anyone talking about the possibility that the rise in human obesity rates might be tied to an oncoming ice age. These sorts of things have happened before, and it is worth noting Medieval paintings from the time of the last mini Ice Age that show a rather large proportion of well-fed folks.
Stocky people survive in cold climbs. Inuit, Russ, even Neanderthal. Perhaps our genes are telling us something that we ought to be listening to. If evolutionary theories are to be believed, then species adapt to changing environments. Our society has certainly changed, and so have our bodies. Maybe it is more than just lethargy and sloth at play.
Just sayin’…….
January 29th, 2009 at 12:48 am
[...] scientist and his methods were blasted by his previous supervisor. Or that the Snowy owl and the Arctic gull are delighting birders in making appearences father south than they’ve been seen for [...]
January 29th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
[...] the Icecaps Recede… John Hinderaker at Powerline and Jules Crittenden point to somewhat silly MSM stories about the migratory habits of arctic birds, specifically the [...]