First robins of 2014 and what we can learn


Here are my arrival records since 1986
Year March April
2014 31
2013 28
2012 15
2011 23
2010 23
2009 19
2007 25
2006 23
2005 29
2004 25
2003 25
2002 10
2001 11
2000 22
1999 29
1998 4
1997 2
1996 9
1995 3
1994 21
1993 17
1992 4
1991 22 15
1990 16
1989 16
1987 18
1986 16
Note the shift to March from April
This is a strong trend and 2013 is an outlier
Just as 1994 was an earlier outlier
Climate change even in a two year cold spring
Their movement is not triggered by our conditions
They move because of what they observe on the range they are leaving.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sense of Place

Image
GOING NATURE’S WAY By Kate Crowley I am intrigued by the idea of Sense of Place; to feel completely ‘at home’ in one particular place.  I have read that people who grow up on the Great Plains feel claustrophobic when they are in forested environments and in reverse,  people who have grown up surrounded by forest find the openness of the plains unnerving, with nothing to break the view to the horizon. I grew up in the city, but the Minnehaha Creek and Parkway were just two blocks away and I spent countless hours playing and exploring there.  The city lakes were within biking distance. The Mississippi River was just blocks away from the apartment where I lived the first four years of my life.  When I was 36 I married Mike and moved to our current home and it was perfect.  When my dad first visited us in our new home, he said, “Kate must think she’s died and gone to heaven”.  This is where I am supposed to be.  Scientists who have studied the e...
Read more

Holly Springs, MS to Memphis, TN

Image
Day 13 – March 30 It rained during the night and was still raining when we got up, but it gradually lightened and by the time we left Strawberry Plains the sky was clearing and it was 63F. Before hitting the road we met with Bubba Hubbard, the Director of the Audubon Center , Andrea Schuhmann their Outreach person and Chad Pope, the center ecologist. We talked about how we might connect with them on the bike trip. They recommended a number of people and groups – either bike related or river.  We appreciate these local resources and the networks they can link us up with. Andrea is an avid biker, originally from Kentucky and she said she has found the ethic in Mississippi Very different than what she was used to.  She didn’t want to scare us, but she just wanted us to know that there isn’t a lot of respect on the road for people riding bikes.  A couple features of Strawberry Plains that we really liked were the rain chains and the chimney swift h...
Read more

Mississippi River - St Paul - Onalaska

Full Length Mississippi DAY 1 MARCH 18, 2012 SCOUTING TRIP Left home with temperatures in the 70s and high humidity. The most bizarre weather we’ve ever seen in our lives for Minnesota in mid-march. It was overcast until we hit the Twin Cities and the temperature continued to rise, pushed by strong southerly winds. Another strange phenomena at this time of year. We had just heard the first Eastern bluebird of the year at our house – far earlier than normal, and on the way, going past Pine City, we saw great blue herons flying over the trees of their rookery. The Snake River still had ice on it, but it was dark in color and obviously close to going out. This will be our ‘scouting’ or ‘ground truthing’ trip for next year’s bike expedition. We have a number of guide books with directions for roads/trails to take along the river and we are going to try to see how accurate they are. The most recent one was written in 2008. Getting closer to St.Paul, we saw a mature ba...
Read more