Posted on 11/08/2011 7:48:33 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Birds in central California are significantly larger than they were 25 to 40 years ago, and researchers believe it may be because they are bulking up in body weight to ride out severe storms related to global climate change.
Over the last 25 years, a robin, for example, has increased about an eighth of an inch in wing length and about 0.2 ounces in mass, according to a paper published online in Global Change Biology.
The findings fly in the face of assumptions based on an ecological benchmark known as Bergmann’s rule: Birds and mammals tend to be larger at higher latitudes, perhaps to conserve body heat. Under this reasoning, birds and mammals would get smaller as they adapted to rising global temperatures.
But they also suggest that explanations for the bigger birds are more complex, according to researcher Jill Demers, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory.
“The degree of physical change over a relatively short scale of time is remarkable and surprising,” Demers said. “Similar studies in Pennsylvania and Europe, for example, show that birds there have decreased in size over the past several decades.”
Overall, birds in central California have grown an average of 2% to 5% in body weight and wingspan, said Rae Goodman, who discovered the trend while working as a graduate student at San Francisco State University, analyzing data from thousands of birds caught and released each year near San Francisco Bay and the Point Reyes National Seashore.
More study is needed to determine whether these changes are good for central California birds and how they affect food chains, Goodman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
Women and minorities splattered hardest.
Or they are eating the scraps of our food we leave out for them. Have you seen the pigeons in a McDonald’s parking lot scarfing down french fries. They look like winged Michael Moores.
I think it is because they are eating more meals at McDonalds and Burger King.
No, it’s because Californian’s are getting smaller.
Birds, mammals and fish get smaller with warmer climate trends and bigger with colder climate trends. The birds are getting bigger. They are adapting to a colder world. The warming alarmists refuse to see what it right in front of them. All the evidence is there, all you have to do is look. Unfortunately, when the data contradicts your religion, you keep your faith in man-made warming, socialism, utopian dreams, what have youj.
ROFL That’s pretty much the explanation. If winged animals can grow big due to glow bull warming, then the average moonbat got bigger too.
I think it’s time for Michelle to look into this. American birds are getting fatter and fatter. The federal government needs to start regulating bird feeders.
Now there’s a campaign for you, Michelle!
I’ve noticed the same thing. I saw some robins that had doubled or tripled in size and changed to nearly all black in color. They were attacking some road kill to bulk up for the global climate change.
Bird is the word.
Now I really need to clean up my keyboard! LOL!
What birds?
Nah, it’s cause I’m feeding them too much.
I’ll cut back....
"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. "
Omigod they're turning into monsters. Somebody page Alfred Hitchcock.
If the birds are getting bigger because of anticipated storms, there are bigger questions here than merely the climate.
This suggests that birds somehow can see the future and act to adapt to it. This has profound theological implications.
Predestination, fortunetelling, scrying- this could be hugh.
Junk food..
That or they are being fed more birdseed in backyard feeders and have better pickings with respect to all kinds of food scarps available.
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