Whether there’s snow or not, February brings a blizzard of white
to the skies over North Carolina, in the form of snow geese and tundra
swans.
#ISeeChanger Keith Maurer noticed these migratory birds leaving his
favorite North Carolina wildlife refuge spots earlier this month. “Seems
odd for early February. Is this just another result of our very mild
winter?”
The Atlantic Flyway is the route snow geese take past Keith Maurer’s
stomping grounds as they migrate, and they’re usually active along that
route between November and March.
But there’s room for complexity within that time period, and “weather
definitely affects bird behavior,” says Chandler Sawyer, habitat
manager for Audubon’s Pine Island Sanctuary and Center. “I wouldn’t say
it’s weird [for Maurer to see geese and swans take off in early
February], but snow geese generally do hang out a little longer.”
Over several decades the populations of these birds have grown
dramatically, so there are plenty to observe in the coastal wetlands of
south Virginia and North Carolina. In the annual Waterfowl Status Report
issued by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, scientists estimate
818,000 snow geese use the Atlantic Flyway, three times as many as 25
years ago.
John Stanton, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
has been working in North Carolina for almost that entire time.
He says written records about geese and swan migration along the
Flyway go back a century, with solid data going back decades. They show
that the dates geese pack up and head north or south.
Late arrivals?
That’s not to say that migratory bird patterns haven’t been affected
by climatic shifts. In the fall, if temperatures don’t drop in the
northern spots they frequent, birds may not get clear signals to move to
wintering grounds. That’s a hypothesis from Steve Coari at the Virginia
Beach Audubon Society. “To the observer’s point, most of the migrations
have been coming in much, much later this season and we’re presuming
it’s because of the warmer weather that we’ve had so much of the year
here,” Coari says.
And local experts including Stanton acknowledges there’s “a little
bit” of evidence that snow geese are showing up in North Carolina,
Virginia and Maryland somewhat later. But he says, “we need to be very
cautious.”
Bottom line: it may be that the geese haven’t really left yet.
Avoiding harrassment
While Stanton says swan and geese migration generally is stable, he
has noticed a couple of changes. First, he’s noticed “geese exploring
new wintering areas as they seek to avoid specific disturbances.” In
other words, geese and swans wanting to avoid harassment, like hunting,
airplanes, or even just development, will pick up and move some miles
away, and they may be doing it more often. (The human equivalent may be
trying to find the good spot at the concert, while avoiding the girls
with cell phones, the tall guys, and the people going back and forth to
the bar the whole time.)
And second, he believes tundra swans have “broadened” their territory
in North Carolina, “ten, twenty, thirty, fifty miles into surrounding
areas,” possibly looking for water and food.
“Many observations, such as that one, repeated many times, will give
us better data on which to base a better understanding of these and
other questions,” says FWS biologist John Stanton. hjhipster via Flickr
So what does Keith Maurer’s observation mean?
John Stanton’s guess is that what Maurer saw was snow geese and
tundra swans responding to a local stimulus or disturbance; he suspects
that those birds may still be in wintering grounds nearby. But Stanton
admits he really can’t know.
He says that’s why recording data is so important.
“Many observations such as that one, repeated many times, will give
us more data on which to base a better understanding of these and other
questions,” Stanton says. “Pioneers of the past kept records of their
expeditions, and those were the basis of our understands in the natural
world. They are still pertinent today to help us learn about the
environment and how it may be changing.”
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