Tiny Bunny 'Falling off the Tops of Mountains' Because of Climate Change
By BILL BLAKEMORE
Dec. 30, 2009

An American pika

"Third cutest North American animal" falls off mountains as temperatures rise.

Few would argue, though. The creator must have been in a 1950's Disney mood when designing this terminally cute rock-scrambler, beloved of mountain hikers in America's West whose treks are punctuated from time to time by pikas' high-pitched warning whistles -- and a glimpse, if they're quick, before the pikas vanish down a crevice in some jumbled pile of talus slope rocks.
But these bite-sized bunnies, beloved of weasels, which like to eat them, are starting to "fall off the tops of mountains," as field biologists put it -- as are many other mountain species -- because of global warming.


 

 It's a foggy morning on the Chehalis Estuary and looking out through our "50" camera I'm having a hard time seeing very far. In fact, it's so foggy that our radio link is suffering as the signal is lessened by too much water in the air - it has gone offline for a few seconds every now and then and the signal indication is showing very low.

But the good news is that there seems to be a larger than normal group of eagles not far from the tower - and they're feeding and brawling and making a great spectacle from time to time.

The road from installing the tower to getting these pictures and the live video out has been a long and rocky one - and it has not ended yet. On Monday two of us braved the cold and trekked out to the tower from Eagle Point to bring the fuel cell more methanol and to fix a power problem that had shown up with the cold weather. Something was causing the tower to go offline for up to 45 minutes every few hours. 

In addition, one of the three cameras (#40) was locked in one position, looking down the access ladder; pretty much useless for watching eagles. This camera had been shipped to Alaska and back and appears to have suffered from the trip - we removed it and it is going in for repair.

After swapping in the new 28 litre jug of methanol I consolidated the remaining amounts in the other two jugs there and we now have one that is about 2/3 full. We're down to that and what is in the current jug - about 6 weeks of operation - then have to purchase another jug so keep those donations coming in please! The price of the methanol at this time is pretty high due to it being shipped all the way to Germany to be re-refined (must be extremely pure to run in the fuel cell) and packaged and then shipped back. Four Stones' president Dana Brown is working on getting locally packaged product OK'd by SFC so we can get it for less but for now it is over $200 for the 28 litres. This is still better than having to lug a half-dozen propane cylinders out on the frozen estuary. 

The eagles have been staying away in droves - hardly any up until today. I'm betting that the other estuaries they've been feeding at are finally freezing over - and this one, the one that is usually open for the rest of the Winter, is where they'll all head to. The gathering shown in this picture is larger than I've seen in any of the times I've visited the site over the past months.

There's still fish in front of the underwater camera so there will be food for them - and there are still lots of carcasses in the waters surrounding the tower.

As I finished with the methanol, Chris, one of David Hancock's employees, got up on the top of the tower and lashed down the solar panel that had come loose in the winds a couple of weeks ago. We're lucky we didn't lose it as the two panels probably save us about 1/2 litre of methanol any day that it is sunny. 

We're just about to get the control channel for the cameras set up - the modem was installed last Friday but the weather has been so bad that getting up to the pumphouse to connect it into the system has not been possible until today - ice storms and really dangerous driving conditions have kept us away. Once this additional modem is in place our volunteers will be able to control the cameras in real time and you'll see more of what is happening around the tower. Until now it has been mostly running to a set program, moving to "interesting" spots every minute or two.

Enjoy!

richard

Tag: chehalis eagle salmon fish fuel cell camera eagle point estuary spawning harrison

Source: CBC News

Posted: 12/06/09 8:39AM

A male European blackcap gathers grass for its nest. (Michael Apel/Wikimedia Commons)

Putting out a bird feeder in the winter can have a dramatic effect on the evolution of migratory birds, researchers in Germany and Canada say.

In research published in Current Biology, scientists say a single population of European blackcaps has in a matter of decades split into groups that don't interbreed, despite living in the same forest for part of the year.

Bird researchers first noticed the divide in migratory patterns in 1959, after humans began offering the blackcaps food in the winter. One group migrates from Germany to the southwest, spending winters in Spain, while the other flies to the northwest to winter in Great Britain.

The two groups now show different adaptations based on the length of their migratory route and the food available to them in winter, the scientists said.

"The new northwest migratory route is shorter, and those birds feed on food provided by humans instead of fruits as the birds that migrate southwest do," said Martin Schaefer of the University of Freiburg.