MARCH 18,
2019 10:54 AM,
UPDATED
MARCH 18, 2019 03:19 PM
A rainbow
greets geese on the Pacific Flyway in the Sacramento Valley
A
beautiful morning in a Sacramento rice field is complete with a rainbow and an
active grind of geese. The big Pacific Flyway migration is underway in the
Sacramento Valley, with millions of birds expected in the coming months.
By Jim
Morris
A
beautiful morning in a Sacramento rice field is complete with a rainbow and an
active grind of geese. The big Pacific Flyway migration is underway in the
Sacramento Valley, with millions of birds expected in the coming months.
By Jim
Morris
Every
year, millions of waterbirds migrating from Alaska to Patagonia take a break
from that epic journey to rest, eat and breed in a stretch of wetlands spanning
six Western states called the Great Basin.
A warming
climate has made that migration more challenging by altering how mountain
snowmelt flows into the network of lakes and rivers stretching from the Sierra
Nevada to the Rockies, according to a new study based on 25 years of climate,
weather and avian population data.
Researchers
found that “climate warming has significantly reduced the amount and shifted
seasonality of water flowing into wetlands” throughout the region, altering
habitat for migratory birds, according to the study in Scientific Reports.
It
suggests the trend will continue with warming weather causing snow to melt
earlier and shifting peak flows. That could benefit some birds, but threaten
others.
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