Posted on 10/14/2018 4:57:43 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Research by Oregon State's Betts and Sarah Frey found warblers declined in areas with young forests, including those replanted after clear-cut logging. But hermit warblers are doing better in other areas.
"In landscapes that had more older forest, their population declines were lowered, or even reversed, even though the climate has been warming," Frey says.
The Pacific Northwest has had a decades-long push to preserve its old-growth forests, and the warblers thrived in them. That suggests these forests somehow shielded them from the ill effects of rising temperatures.
The question is why, and that is where this new study comes in.
Kim and fellow Oregon State researcher Adam Hadley move the trapped hermit warbler's feathers aside and attach a tiny radio tag to its back using nontoxic glue (the kind used for fake eyelashes). Then they release the bird, and it flies away.
The next day is the true test.
Hadley and the others push into a dense stand of trees, armed with receivers that look like old-fashioned TV antennas.
"It's going away from us," Hadley says, holding the antenna over his head.
"We'll try to be as quiet as we can," says Betts, as branches snap underfoot.
They walk down a drainage though a 50-year-old tree plantation, a remnant of the logging past at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. Then they cross into a grove of much older trees, some close to 300 years old. Hadley explains that the temperatures can be different at various heights of a tree. "It's possible that when it's warmer, [songbirds] may be only using the bottom and more shady parts of the trees," he says. He guesses they may move up higher when it becomes cooler.
He says the complex layers and sheer biomass of old-growth keeps the temperature in these forests up to 5 degrees lower. But the researchers can't fully understand what's going on without knowing more about how the birds use the forests.
Hadley waves the antenna through the air trying to pinpoint the warbler's location. "I'm not getting the strongest signal at the top of the tree, seems to be a bit stronger in the midcanopy," he calls out to Betts.Each spring, songbirds migrate thousands of miles to breed in Oregon's Cascade Mountains. Deep in a forest, Oregon State University researcher Hankyu Kim feels he has gotten inside the head of one species, the hermit warbler.
"These birds are territorial in the breeding ground, they set up their territories, and they fight with each other to defend it," he says.
Armed with this knowledge, a nearly invisible net strung between two repurposed fishing poles, a lifelike plastic warbler decoy and a looped recording of birdcalls, Kim's trap is set.
His yellow hard hat matches the yellow head of the hermit warbler, which on cue flies down from the upper canopy of the trees to investigate the source of the song. Kim hides in the bushes, trying to follow the frantic bird with binoculars.
"When birds fly in, they hit the net and drop down into a pocket and lie down there like a hammock," Kim says. And within just a few minutes, the hermit warbler takes the bait, flying across a small clearing and hitting the net.
It's another win for the decoy.
Kim and his colleagues are developing a new experiment, trying to track the movements of hermit warblers through the forest. Learning how they move could help explain how bird species are dealing with rising temperatures and climate change.
"We have these long-term population monitoring routes across the Northwest. And a surprising number of species are declining," says Oregon State professor Matt Betts. "Actually, more than about half of the species that live in a forest like this are in decline."
Rising temperatures can shrink where some birds can live and where they can find food.
For the hermit warbler, those declines are up to 4 percent each year.
He and the others will compare the hermit warblers' movements with temperature data they've also been gathering. They hope to get another step closer to understanding how this native songbird species might cope with the warming climate.
"I don't see it likely that hermit warblers will have air conditioning any time soon," Betts says. Perhaps old-growth forests could be the next best thing.
Goebbels ping
The creatures of the natural world use the natural world to deal with natural variations in the weather found in nature.
And it’s all our fault!
Fighting global warming will also bring the unicorns back\s
No we’ll get green alligators and long necked geese, humpty-backed camels and chimpanzees. Cats, and rats, and elephants...but sure as you’re born, we won’t get back the unicorn.
Old-growth strip mall sign is best for nesting.
NOAA Temperature Adjustments Correlate Exactly with the Rise in CO2 - Big Surprise
Thermometers show the US cooling since about 1920, but NOAA massively cools the past to create the appearance of a warming trend. These adjustments make a spectacular hockey stick of data tampering. When plotted against atmospheric CO2, the correlation is almost perfect. NOAA is tampering with the data exactly to match their theory.
NOAA Radiosonde Data Shows No Warming For 58 Years March 7, 2016
NOAA Fiddles With Climate Data To Erase The 15-Year Global Warming ‘Hiatus’ 6/4/2015
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have found a solution to the 15-year “pause” in global warming: They “adjusted” the hiatus in warming out of the temperature record. New climate data by NOAA scientists doubles the warming trend since the late 1990s by adjusting pre-hiatus temperatures downward and inflating temperatures in more recent years.
GISS US tampering.NOAA = Fake Science!
The irony? Old growth forests are SILENT. No birdsong. Songbirds do not live in high canopies, they live in thickets, fields and new growth woods.
What use could the late John McCain possibly have for Old Growth Forests?
Oh....Not THAT Songbird.
I’m pretty sure the Oak trees in my yard May Help Songbirds Cope With Warming Climate.
Songbird infestation? Sounds like they need some feral cats.
One of the causes of song bird decline is thought to be the destruction of the under-story of forests by over grazing of white-tail deer.
Birdy ping
That won’t last much longer because the USFS, DNR, BLM and other feckless agencies are hell-bent on letting the old growth forest burn to the ground.
My pfft may help them with cope with warming too, where is my money?
Ask California about the “old growth forest” they leave in place while Moonbeam fiddles his violin as the state is burning dry of anything green in a dozen spots north and south. It’s only cost the $676M so far. Year ain’t over.
rwood
Thank God for the government otherwise birds would migrate with the weather changes on their own.
Gotta bookmark this post.
Thanks!
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