This year's unusually warm winter fueled and inspired recent posts about early birds and interest in climate-related impacts on bird populations, most recently by Whan, below, and email responses, private and public, to the phenology post I offered recently (Carpenter bees before Chipping Sparrows? March 21). If you are among the interested, in addition to the link offered by Bill, I suggest you check the following resource for hints of what may be in store for your favorite common birds in the Eastern United States. This 2004 atlas by local talent; Stephen N. Matthews, Raymond J. O'Connor, Louis R. Iverson, Anantha M. Prasad attempts to predict future population shifts, "Atlas of Climate Change Effects in 150 Bird Species of the Eastern United States": http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/technical_reports/pdfs/2 004/gtr318/ne_gtr318.pdf Tom Bain Delaware County -----Original Message----- From: Ohio birds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bill Whan Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 9:46 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [Ohio-birds] Hooded warbler and other early spring dates Andy Sewell tells me our discovery yesterday of a hooded warbler at Scioto Trails SP has been deemed by eBird Ohio's earliest record. And so it would be if you consulted only Peterjohn's "The Birds of Ohio." However, there is a specimen at the Ohio State Museum, #7947, collected "greatly emaciated" in Ottawa County by M. B. Trautman on 3/28/1950, and two seen on 4/2 of that same year in Columbus (AFN 4(4):245). My musings the other day about our unprecedented presence of two-three Nelson's sparrows at the Funk wetlands (Peterjohn states "Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows are generally late spring migrants.") were much helped by Jen Brumfield's suggestion that it is possible these birds overwintered at the site. Strange as that may seem, it is to my mind the best explanation of finding this species here 22-23 March. Finally on the topic, some very interesting speculations on the big problems migrant birds face with climate warming can be read at http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/272/1581/2561.full#sec-2 This article involves British birds, but the principles remain the same; warming effects birds' insect prey, for example, on disparate schedules, and outbreaks of food and flowerings of plants may no longer match migration phenology. Warming won't just move all these schedules up as one, but could shake things up a lot. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]