When I moved to the Hudson Valley from North Carolina, I didn’t expect to see red-bellied woodpeckers or Carolina wrens, two of my favorite backyard birds. But I was surprised. The woodpeckers are common, and the wrens come and go. They are sparse after a cold winter but usually rebound in a year or two.
These birds, which wouldn’t have been found in New York State twenty years ago, are known as “climate canaries.” Harking back to the old expression “canary in a coal mine,” a climate canary can be any animal, plant, bird, or natural phenomenon that has changed as a result of the warming climate.
Early blooming of certain perennial flowers like daffodils is one example of a climate canary. Late arrival of fall leaf color is another. An advance in the date when the ice melts on a lake or snow on a mountaintop: those are also climate canaries.
Those examples relate to phenology, the annual, seasonal cycles of nature. Other climate canaries are related to range, such as the red-bellied woodpeckers and Carolina wrens in my backyard in New York. The absence of a species in its traditional range can also be a climate canary.
The phrase “climate canary” comes from “canary in a coal mine.” These phenomena are harbingers of trouble. While it’s nice to see new birds, if the climate has changed sufficiently to make life suitable for them, it may spell trouble for other species – including us.
For example, those daffodils that bloom earlier may mean that our winters are no longer cold enough to kill off ticks that bring Lyme disease.
Climate canaries are a warning we should heed, just as the coal miners did.
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Photo, taken on March 9, 2010, courtesy of Sarah via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Support for Earth Wise comes from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.