The moaning and groaning of global warming hysteria is beginning to slowly rear its head blaming the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River on global warming. As of right now, nobody has officially gone on the record but today on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, he talked of someone blaming global warming on the fact these Canada geese shouldn’t have been there. They said climate change has screwed up the migration patterns of the geese and birds in general.
Here’s some factual information that for intelligent people helps explain a few things. According to Science Daily, birds migrate because they get hungry.
One textbook explanation suggests either eating fruit or living in non-forested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behavior.
Not so, report a pair of ecologists from The University of Arizona in Tucson. The pressure to migrate comes from seasonal food scarcity.
“It’s not just whether you eat insects, fruit, nectar or candy bars or where you eat them — it matters how reliable that food source is from day-to-day,” said W. Alice Boyle. “For example, some really long-distance migrants like arctic terns are not fruit-eaters.”
And all this time I thought they went South for the same reasons people do; warmer weather.
So in essence what is being said is that some birds will not migrate provided they have enough food right where they are. (Please see end of article for a very famous and fitting fable.)
I have dear friends who live in Maine and spend many hours over the course of different times of the year counting birds. Recently, in a phone conversation with one of them, he told me that he and his wife were recently volunteering for another bird count. He began telling me about all the species of birds he was seeing in the dead of winter in Northern New England, that normally wouldn’t be there. If you haven’t heard, Maine, like many other places in the U.S., is experiencing very cold weather and sufficient snowfall covering much of the available food supply for birds and when the lakes and rivers freeze over, USUALLY the ducks and geese head south and follow open water.
So why aren’t these birds going South? There’s really a very simple explanation. And it’s ironic that many of the same ill people who insist the world is coming to an end from climate change are the ones at fault for birds not migrating.
We as a society have become so obsessed with animals and their protection, millions and millions of people are feeding wildlife from their back yards. As a result, they are keeping these birds, along with other species, well fed, unafraid of humans and therefore they have no real reason to leave.
Canada geese are no different. What used to be a rarity to see Canada geese in the Northern climes after the freeze over, is now commonplace because so many people feed them. In some locals it has become so bad the smaller ponds and backyard water holes are nasty polluted with the excrement and leftover waste from far too many ducks and geese.
Being amply fed, the birds are not migrating like they used to. It’s not climate change screwing up their migration patterns, it’s you and me. So we can blame ourselves for the crash of Flight 1549.
Now on to a very fitting fable:
A bird who normally flies South for the winter, discovered a house where the people who lived there put out bird food. The bird was so happy and well fed and decided to build a nest high up on the roof of the house, behind the chimney where it would also be warm.
Life was good and as the cold weather began to settle in, the bird merely flew from his comfortable nest down to the bird feeder and back.
One day, as the bird was perched on the feeder, he noticed the feed was all gone. He scratched and pecked hoping to find food. Days passed and still no food. The owners of the house had “migrated” to a warmer climate for the brunt of the cold winter.
It was too late for the little bird to fly South and he had become weakened from not enough to eat. He just sat in his nest trying to stay warm and hoping spring would come.
Over time he became too weak to fly or hardly even walk but fate would befriend him. A neighbor farmer stopped by to check up on the house and had decided to ride his horse for the chore. As the horse and farmer were leaving, the little bird noticed the horse deposited a very large pile of manure right near the side of the house.
The bird thought perhaps there was something to eat in that pile, so he slowly crawled and scratched and worked his way to the edge of the roof. He judged his fall hoping to land in the pile of manure.
His aim was good and within a short amount of time the bird got his fill and was re-energized. He was so happy he flew back up to is nest, perching on the edge singing loudly. In a flash, a hawk swooped down, took the bird away and ate him, leaving nothing but a pile of feathers.
The moral of the story is: “When you’re full of shit, keep your mouth shut!”
Tom Remington
