CLIMATE and PHYSICAL CHANGE EFFECTS

is a featured writing in the current Canadian Wildfife Magazine.Published six times yearly, the subscription is for my grand-daughter who has infinite love of Nature's inhabitants and habitats. About 50 pages ~ all photos are in colour ~ together with
published articles by Canadian authors.

The current cover features a Western Sandpiper

dramatically landing on shallow rippling blue waters possibly 'fish hunting' for its daily meals.For your enjoyment and pleasure,
I acquaint you with reality of a few 'birds and bees'gleaned from 2020's March/April edition.

A 2-page colour spread highlights Mother and Cub submitted to a Canadian Wildlife Federation contest, by Tony Joyce, Port Moody, British Columbia.

He wrote: I have watched this bear since she was a young cub and throughout the years, she has faced hardships,including being hit by a car. My wife and I were hiking through the forest one night this past spring and were delighted to find one of our favourite bears now is a first-time mom.
The young cub has grown since I took this photo;
it has been an amazing experience to document the life of this bear.”

Snowy Owl's Cool Facts

The Snowy Owl's large body mass amd thick winter plumage prevent heat loss better than any other bird (except Antarctic's Adelie penguins), which explains why Canada's Prairies where winter
temperatures can drop to -30C for weeks at a time, Back in the 1970's, James Gessaman, a biologist at Utah State University, believed that snowy owls could survive much lower temperatures, much lower-

than any recorded in Canada's -63C in Snag, Yukon. He undertook an experiment that exposed a snowy owl to increasingly colder temperatures.When -77 C had no effects, that was followed by 5 hours at -93C. Amazingly, the snowy owl survived these lethal temperatures with no ill effects.
(Submitted by Wayne Lynch)

Re Conservation
Gunning forGood: A sharp-eyed conservation officer kept a white-tailed deer alive

reently in Saskatchewan ~ by shooting it. The buck's antlers had become tangled

with those of another buck which was dead.

The officer was able to free the deer by shattering its antlers with a blast from her shotgun.

Salmon on the Run? Local conservationists are worried about a major decline in Atlantic salmon in New Brunswick's Miramichi River. “ The numbers keep spiralling downward, and action must be taken to reverse this,” says Mark Hambrook, president of the Miramichi Salmon Association.

April Showers in the Wild

These animals have a special relationships with rain:
When it rains, these ugly wriggly earthworms can come above ground because their skin will stay moist enough to allow them to breathe. Some researchers think earthworms come to the surface when it rains because they can move faster across the soil surface; others think rain causes vibrations that sound like moles digging, prompting the worms to move up and out of the way.

Cross Canada, except Prince Edward Island, while they don't love rain, black bears can still be spotted out in light rains. It helps that they have their own method of towelling off: a 2017 study found that black bears, like many other mammals, shake themselves dry at a frequency perfectly calibrated to
for maximum water-loss per shake in relation to their size.

Southern Ontario and Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia ~ bull frogs are highly aquatic and don't like to move around on land unless it is raining. That means their ability to spread out and create new bullfrog populations depends on there being enough rain.

As aquatic mammals, muskrats rely on the wetlands and waterways to make their homes ~
and rain is crucial to supporting these habitats.

Cross-Canada (rare in Newfoundland and Labrador and PEI) ~ for mallards, heavy rain can create flooded fields with fewer predators and plenty of food.

Can Bats be Saved?In what may be the most devastating wildlife disease, ever to strike North America,
white-nose-syndrome continues to spread ~ wiping out key bat populations.
Biologists are scrambling to come up with an effective practicable response.

There are over 1,300 different bat species ~ meaning ~ bats make up 1/5 of all mammal species.

10 colour pages of photos and information are displayed.

Fact: During hibernation, a bat's heart rate drops from 200-300 beats per minute to about 10.Fact: Old Mines become New Homes; scattered across the rugged terrain of northern Ontario,are countless abandoned mines. No one knows for sure how many ~ estimates are as high as 5,000.
They are a significant hazard to the public and to some wildlife..many remain exposed because rehabilitation can be a costly liability and challenging undertakings for the mining companies responsible. Many of thse abandoned mines have become naturalized ~

and are now crucial habitats for local species.

New Dimensions

Mel Walwyn questions: Why are some birds getting smaller even as their wings get longer?

Climate change...peregrine recovery...adaptations are some factors

believed to be behind the changes.

It's bad enough that we have to contend with shrinking bird populations,
but shrinking birds, as well!

Walwyn states: A study published in Ecology Letters in December 2019, has discovered that many migratory bird species in North America are getting smaller in body size ~ even as their wings are getting longer. A team of scientists, led by conservation ornithologist Brian Weeks at University of Michigan analyzed more than 70,000 specimens collected over 40 years by Chicago's renowned Field Museum. Many had been killed after striking building windows in the city during spring and fall migration. ~ so they represented an excellent sampling of healthy populations over time.

Weeks and his colleagues found that between 1978 and 2016,
body size dropped significantly in 49 of 52 species examined.
This was based on measuring the lower leg bone, generally considered the most precise measure of body size variation within species. They also found wing length increased significantly in 40 species.

Foregoing information gleaned by Merle /Baird-Kerr...March 21, 2020.

Comments welcome: mbairdkerr@cogeco.ca