[mou] Re: Henslow's Sparrows (numbers)

[Steve Foss]

Well, moose are not disappearing in NE minnesota. 

Still lots up here. 

While moose numbers wax and wane in northern Minnesota, the
apparent lack of pattern to their numbers has not been
explained, and, considering the limitiations of humanity,
such fluctuations probably won't be. 

--- Steve G <tapaculo@halcyon.ws> wrote:

> On Monday, 4 Jul 2005, Jim Williams wrote:
> "Can anyone offer insight into the very large number of
> Henslow's Sparrows
> being reported in Minnesota this summer? More birds? Why?
> What changed? Or,
> more birders? Do we simply find more once we begin
> looking?"
> 
> While waiting for the Prairie Warbler on Monday (in vain)
> at Ritter Park,
> where there also are Henslow's this year, I discussed
> this same question
> with Dennis Martin. He has a hypothesis about how the
> weather pattern this
> April and May might have encouraged birds to overshoot
> their ranges, which
> I'll leave to him to explain. But when he pointed out
> that Henslow's have
> long been found in most of the limited grassland in Iowa,
> the fundamental
> reason for their expansion seemed simpler to me: the
> recent change to a
> warmer, wetter climate.  Not that there aren't other
> factors behind the
> suddenness of the expansion; Brad Bolduan asked some good
> questions as to
> whether numbers are reduced in their core range, and
> about what habitat the
> birds are using.  But think of all the species that are
> doing great in
> Minnesota these days - Cooper's Hawk, Red-bellied
> Woodpecker (but not other
> woodpeckers like flicker or Red-headed), these sparrows
> (but not our normal
> grassland birds), mockingbirds this year - what do they
> all have in common?
> 
> 
> So we may no longer have moose in Minnesota (they're
> disappearing from NW
> Minnesota because of the warming), but we'll have
> Henslow's Sparrows.  More
> like Iowa, you might say.
> 
> 
> Stephen Greenfield
> Minneapolis
> tapaculo@halcyon.ws
> 
> 
> 



		
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