One of the claims about “global climate change” is that it will affect the normal ranges of flora and fauna of our planet. Well, with a very cold northern hemisphere this winter, that seems to happening. A bird not seen (as a mature adult) in Massachusetts since the 1800’s , an Ivory Gull, normally an inhabitant of arctic areas, has been spotted. Here are the details from the Plymouth, MA Patriot-Ledger. – Anthony
GULL-LOVER’S TRAVELS: Birdwatchers flock to Plymouth to spot rare specimen
PLYMOUTH — Jan 28th, 2009
The temperatures were in the single digits, but not low enough to keep the gawkers away. A celebrity was in town, behind the East Bay Grille, a visitor not seen in these parts in decades, if not longer.
But these weren’t paparazzi, and this wasn’t a Hollywood star. Rather, they were avid birdwatchers – about 20 in all – braving the frigid air as they scanned the bay and the edges of the breakwater with binoculars and spotting scopes.
And they would be rewarded, catching a glimpse of a glimpse of a rare, fully mature ivory gull. A birdwatcher reported seeing one in Plymouth last week, and another was spotted at Eastern Point Lighthouse in Gloucester. From Sunday through Tuesday, the avian visitor was a regular in Plymouth, much to the delight of birdwatchers, who came from near and far in hopes of adding the extremely rare bird to their life list.
Ivory gulls normally stay well above Newfoundland, living on Arctic ice where they follow whales and polar bears to feed on the scraps and carcasses they leave behind after making a kill.
Until this year, the last report of a fully mature ivory gull in Massachusetts was in the 1800s. Three immature birds were seen in the 1940s. In 1976, another immature bird had been spotted in Rockport.
Russell Graham of Dallas is flying in Friday for a three-day visit. He’s hoping the gull will still be in town when he arrives.
“The ivory gull is one of a handful of birds that every birder dreams of seeing but almost no one has.,” he said. “This isn’t a dream that’s confined to North America. There is also an immature bird in France that is causing the same reaction there. There are a couple of places where you can go in the summer and expect to see one but they are distant and expensive – Svalbard on Spitsbergen, Norway and Pond Inlet on Baffin Island, Canada.
“I never thought I would have the chance to see one and I can’t pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
If the gull is gone, Graham will consider a side trip to Nova Scotia, where two adult ivory gulls have been seen recently. “I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed,” he said.
John Fox of Arlington, Va., and his friend Adam D’Onofrio of Petersburg drove more than eight hours on Sunday to see the gull.
“No bird this morning,” Fox said a day later, shaking his head. “We left Virginia at three in the morning yesterday and arrived here 20 minutes too late.”
On Sunday morning, hundreds of people got to observe and photograph the gull as it fed on a chicken carcass someone put out on one of the docks in the parking lot. The bird stayed until 11 a.m., then flew across the harbor. It was not seen again for the rest of the day.
“We arrived at 11:20 and spent the rest of the afternoon in the parking lot, hoping it would return,” Fox said.
They stayed at Pilgrim Sands Motel and arrived at the parking lot early Monday morning for one more chance to see the ivory gull before returning to Virginia. Fox said it was his first time in Massachusetts. If he didn’t see the bird, he said, at least he could see Plymouth Rock before they left for home.
“That’s how it goes sometimes,” he said. “We don’t always see what we come for, but it’s nice to see some of the sights when you travel to a new area in hopes of seeing a rare bird.”
As Fox was planning his exit, a commotion caught his attention. One of the birders pointed toward the sky and said with a shout, “There it is.”
The pure white gull was flying toward the parking lot, silhouetted against a bright blue sky. Someone in the crowd announced for the record the gull had arrived at 7:45 a.m.
The bird flew in circles overhead, then landed on a snow bank in the middle of the parking lot. Cameras clicked and the birders “oohed and ahhhed” each time the ivory gull switched positions.
“Look how white it is,” someone said. “It’s got black feet, black eyes and a grayish-black beak,” said another.
The gull eyeballed the chicken carcass, still there from the day before, but it didn’t eat. Instead, it flew to the railing along the edge of the boat ramp and perched with a group of sea gulls. The photographers followed, changing positions to get the best lighting.
Fox stood with the group, talking with other birdwatchers, as the gull sat peacefully on the railing, observing all the people gathered around it. Was it worth the long drive up from Virginia?
“It sure was,” Fox said with a smile.
Michelle, absolutely lovely pics of the gull – I particularly like #3, where the bird is landing.
Everyone else.. carry on!
http://news.aol.com/article/arctics-thaw-brings-security-risks-for/321664?icid=sphere_search
http://news.aol.com/article/odd-planets-extreme-global-warming-highs/320901?icid=sphere_search
Perhaps slightly OT, perhaps not:
Isn’t it time for the folks at Cryosphere Today to use the 30 year mean, i.e. start of 1979 to end of 2008 on all the sea ice charts ??
I mean, why wouldn’t they ??
Gulls fly south but great tits remain!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080508-great-tits.html
I would caution the skeptics to not become insufferable. The news flow is going our way. Using the Dr. Armstrong null hypothesis, I can safely predict that the news flow will go the other way in the very near future. I am drawn to WUWT and CA because of the civil discourse and the open exchange of information, opinions and ideas.
Both sides of this debate want Mother Nature to fit into a box that nicely confirms our view. The reality will be messy and difficult to sort out. IMHO, civil discourse and respect for opposing view points will help us all become more informed and more effective advocates for appropriate public policy. It will also keep the forums lively and informative rather than the intellectual equivalent of drinking warm koolaid.
With regard to your assertions of whale [with the exception of right whales, not extinct but low] and polar bear populations please visit the links below for the facts.
International Whaling Commission
Whale tables too large to copy/past
Polar bear populations through 2006
So … maybe the gulls were out of their “normal” habitat for other reasons?
A rational person would explain that the birds not seen since 1889 were flying south due to climate cooling. If they were reacting to climate warming, they would be flying north. And the latter is what they did 110 yrs ago. What they are doing now is due to the former effect.
Interesting, we just got a date on where we are in terms of travelling backwards in climate temperature: 110 yrs. By this time next year, where will we then be? 1850’s or the Dalton?
Something to pay attention to: What are the animals doing?
Speaking of human animals, I have this uncomfortable feeling that we are retracting in our willingness to engage in economic activities due to the subliminal message that the climate sends us. Take shelter, stay home and hoard or seek warmer climes. 10,000 yrs is time enough to program the human race. The animals do it, and we wonder aloud. We do it, and we don’t get the connection. We are animals too. Hopefully more intelligent.
We know what’s coming. We just don’t know that we know.
Cold is coming.
Observe.
Slightly OT, but more AGW lunacy from California (a lunatic-rich environment)
I just returned home from Santa Barbara, where I attended the public hearing held by our State Land Commission as to whether or not an oil company would be granted a permit to drill for offshore oil in state waters. Of three commissioners, one voted Aye, one voted Nay, and the deciding Nay vote was cast by an AGW true believer, Lt. Governor John Garamendi.
Garamendi stated he would not vote for the project because the revenues the state would receive would go toward various state budgets, and he would only vote for this if all the money (between $2.5 and $5 billion over 13 years) was applied to solving California’s Global Warming problem.
The oil company had already stipulated it would perform carbon offsets for 150% of the GHG emitted by their project, yet this was not enough. The oil company also agreed, in fact volunteered, to pay immediately $100 million to the state upon receiving their drilling permit. But no. Not enough. Even when the state is facing the largest budget deficit ever ($13 billion and growing by almost $1 billion per month!).
Sea level rise is non-existent off California for the past few years, and although the Sierra snowpack is less than usual, the rest of the U.S. is freezing with many record cold temperatures.
This lunacy in California may be coming soon to a government near you!
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California
OT – Anyone care to comment on the implications of a Mt Redoubt eruption? Won’t the particulates thrown into the arctic affect the melt this summer? Should make for a colder summer in the Northern Hemisphere, shouldn’t it?
PHilincalifornia: sorry friend Cryosphere is dedicated to AGW read their comment on
Statement related to Daily Tech article of January 1, 2009
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/global.sea.ice.area.pdf. They have been trying to keep the red line below for years. Here’s just a slight record of program glitches to do this
http://mikelm.blogspot.com/2007/09/left-image-was-downloaded-from.html. However they did remove a Gore statement recently they ain’t too bad…
I would think Austin’s remark on (Arctic) SnowOwl could contain interesting
information (with possible implications for our thoughts on global warming).
There are obvious and easily understandable reasons for delimiting temperature records “back” in history: a minimum of geographical coverage and precicion/accuracy need to be met to give useful information.
I assume the choice of 1880 often chosen, is for reasons along these lines.
However, if proxies (sensu Mann 🙂 ) like distribution of polar and subpolar fauna indicates that the late nineteeth century was unusual cold, the thoughts on how we should draw and interprete temperature baselines could be changed.
(Almost) needless to say, such observations would be weakened if it is only a regional feature, and strengthened if it is circumpolar.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
OT … heads up…
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Mount Redoubt continues to rumble and simmer, prompting geologists to say this Alaska volcano could erupt “perhaps within hours to days.”
Scientists from the Alaska Volcano Observatory have been monitoring activity round-the-clock since the weekend.
If Mount Redoubt does erupt, it would be the first time this occurred in nearly 20 years. And if won’t likely be pretty.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,485048,00.html
Sorry for the OT Anthony. I am just wondering how big it might be. What would a VEI 3 do to the Winter Climate?
Adam (10:49:58) :
“any other explanation”
One would have to see a detailed map of the globe.
I live in Greece and January has been warmer than average Januaries by maybe about five degrees C in the day and the night temperatures. The reason is that the lows are up over the Black Sea and send us a lot of warm moist air . We are not complaining, we need the rain. We get the tail end of the storms of western europe and since I hear of floodings, temperatures must be notably up there too. Plus it is summer in the southern hemisphere.
Here is a better link on the Volcanic activity….
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/news/1-news/662-mt-redoubt-could-erupt?start=2
Of the potential eruption scenarios this is part of the most likely…
Communities around the volcano, especially to the east, northeast, and southeast, would likely experience trace to several millimeters (less than 0.4 inches) of ash fall as a result of discrete explosive events. Such events could also generate pyroclastic flows that swiftly melt snow and ice to form mudflows, or lahars, that would likely travel east down Drift River, possibly reaching and flowing into Cook Inlet……
….. An eruption consisting of multiple explosive events, episodic lava-dome growth and collapse, and lahars may last weeks to months.
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/news/1-news/662-mt-redoubt-could-erupt?start=2
More than likely Anchorage will be affected.
There have been a number of reports of Glaucous, White-Winged and Ivory Gulls normally not seen outside the Arctic from various places across the UK in recent days. e.g.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article5593235.ece
I would think the particulate injected into the atmosphere by Redoubt would lower even further the Arctic sunlight received next summer. More cooling.
Extreme cold, crust shrinks and gets more brittle, volcanic zit pops, ash & dust high in atmosphere making it colder.
As discussed in a previous post La Nina has not developed this NH winter and the indications are that it will not develop. On the contrary there has been quite rapid warming in equatorial pacific waters recently http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/indices.shtml
Randall (19:26:42) :
Dell Hunt, have you seen any snowy owls by the Cascades?
I have to admit, its been so cold here that other than work, and an occasional trip to the grocery store, I haven’t gone out much. So haven’t been out to Cascades to investigate the wildlife.
Harold Peirce Jnr… Quote: “Then the silk-stocking enviromentalists and limosine liberals, who fund the holier-than-thou protestors of spring seal hunt, will start whining because there are no fish, lobsters and crabs to eat at the fancy joints in NYC!”
Yes, but then they will claim that just more proof of man-made global warming.
They found a rare artique bird in Belgium also…http://www.lameuse.be/regions/luxembourg/2009-01-06/erezee-oiseau-rare-venu-siberie-675238.shtml
as well as snowy owl (Harry potter mania!)
http://www.rtlinfo.be/rtl/archive/article/199025?&archiveYear=2008
When we see Penguins, we’ll know it’s really cold.
They found a rare artique bird in Belgium also…
http://www.lameuse.be/regions/luxembourg/2009-01-06/erezee-oiseau-rare-venu-siberie-675238.shtml
as well as snowy owl (Harry potter mania!)
http://www.rtlinfo.be/rtl/archive/article/199025?&archiveYear=2008
When we see Penguins, we’ll know it’s really cold.
stuffed up the link, apologies
Something is strange about the web site that Matti Virtanen suggested
The whole of January 2009 is higher than the record highs for the last 20 year. The whole year of 2008 is higher than the record highs for the last 20 years. I think something is messed up with the data on their web site. Either that or I don’t know what I am doing on the www.
Funny column:
Murdock: Even left now laughing at global warming
DEROY MURDOCK
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
SAN FRANCISCO — So-called “global warming” has shrunk from problem to punch line. And now, Leftists are laughing, too. It’s hard not to chuckle at the idea of Earth boiling in a carbon cauldron when the news won’t cooperate:….
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/397959_murdockonline30.html
Lee:
“Sorry for the OT Anthony. I am just wondering how big it might be. What would a VEI 3 do to the Winter Climate?”
From what I’ve read VEI 3 is pretty small. Mt Saint Helens in 1980 was a VEI 5, and looking at the temperature record, I don’t see a large drop in temperature for any length of time. I think the bigger impact would depend on how large an area the ash spreads. The ash would be a huge change in albeido, and there could be a large melt because of it. (I bet the AGWers would love that)