Sparrows' Sex Life Offers Clues About Global Warming (Bird Species is Promiscuous B/C of Warming)

Courant.com ^ | 12-14-2009 | Rinker Buck

[raybbr]

This week, while global attention is focused on the climate change summit in Copenhagen, a small Connecticut bird is a reminder that the potential harm of a changing world environment is never far away.

About half of the world's population of the elusive saltmarsh sparrows nests every spring on Connecticut's shoreline. But rising water levels due to global warming and other habitat damage are endangering the species, making the bird a critical indicator of the health of Connecticut's coastal flats.

For the past seven years, University of Connecticut ornithologist Chris Elphick has been working with a team of biologists studying the sparrows in salt water marshes from Guilford to Old Lyme. Their work is funded by state and federal grants that support conservation studies designed to protect dwindling species. [The bird is sometimes called the saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow, but the name was shortened recently.]

---

"My best guess is that this bird has developed this highly unusual mating system for one reason — flooding," Elphick said. "No other bird faces quite this threat, and no other bird is this promiscuous."

[raybbr]

Derision is not enough for this idiotic article. Please consider signing up for posting/exposing this ridiculous article.

[MNDude]

I’ll be the first to say it! GW is effecting Tigers as well!

[GulfBreeze]

I heard it’s getting Tigers frisky too.

[Heliand]

Where are these rising water levels? The beach is at the same place every year when I go to it.

[ozark hilljilly]

South American or European?

[DoughtyOne]

But of course...

And the sky is blue because of global warming.
Water is wet because of global warming.
Rain falls due to the dynamics of global warming.
Waves are bigger on the ocean’s surface because of global warming.
Children become adults because of global warming.
Adults become old because of global warming.
Every person on planet earth today, will someday die because of global warming.

I’ve noticed my tube of toothpaste doesn’t seem to last as long as it used to. Must be global warming...

[Raycpa]

[RichInOC]

Okay, most species are more promiscuous when they get warmer.

[reagan_fanatic]

[DoughtyOne]

The water is rising faster than anywhere else at Venice, Italy. ;-)

Isn’t it interesting that the last ten years are supposed to have been warmer than any other ten years since the dinosaur, and yet the water level hasn’t gone up markedly.

Just take it from them, we’re doomed...

[FrankR]

Then, on the other hand, it has been said that birds navigate based on some internal sense of the earths magnitism, which are affected somewhat by Sun Spots.

Perhaps the sparrows are just returning to "normal" mating habits, after slowing down a bit during the sunspot (global warming) years.

After all, birds usually detect winter long before we do...it's one of the signs humans use to know that fall is coming. That means that the birds know it's colder, and they are mating more...hummmmmmmm, seems that they are just cuddling up to stay worm during this record-cold winter, and nature just takes it course.

I have noticed one thing though, this global warming must be the cause the swallowing of large amounts of saliva over a long period of time."* /sarcasm

* thanks to George Carlin.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Dr. John Brignell's WARMLIST
A complete list of things caused by global warming.

[An Old Man]

What a great article!

1. Make a list of how you see things in the future.
2. Find anything that tends to bolster your opinion.
3. Use lots of obfuscating words to confuse the issue.
4. Write the article in a maner that shows you know how to use statistics.

Now if we could just get someone to prove the earth is flat we could get back to business as usual.

Do I need one of these </sarc>? Oh well, I'll just throw it in anyway.

[Juan Medén]

Whoa! Dude! Turn over your hockey stick!

[BenLurkin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLxicwiBQ7Q

[Venturer]

If the Sparrows cease to exist, that means my car wont be crapped on , by them.

[ErnBatavia]

Notied something weird about four days ago.....I saw a freshly broken sparrow egg underneath an eave. That’s not unusual knowing that we got tons of sparrows breeding every spring — but a fresh egg in the middle of December?

[Yaelle]

Obviously global warming is affecting the mating rites of tigers as well.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Hey, baby, you payin’ attention to any of this climate change stuff? Let’s go do it before the world ends...

[dblshot]

Explains Spring Break