North American Birds Are Shrinking, Likely a Result of the Warming Climate | Audubon

North American Birds Are Shrinking, Likely a Result of the Warming Climate | Audubon

Every year, David Willard, collections manager emeritus at the Field Museum, measures the lifeless bodies of birds that die from building collisions in Chicago. Since 1978, this has been his routine every spring and fall, when millions of migrating birds pass through the city to reach their seasonal homes. All told, he’s gathered some 70,000 avian individuals from 52 species.

In a study published today in Ecology Letters, researchers from the University of Michigan and the Field Museum put to use Willard’s 40 years of data and found that North American migratory birds have been shrinking throughout the decades, likely a result of the warming climate. As their bodies have gotten smaller, most of the species have also developed longer wings. 

Upstate New York duck farmers beg Gov. Cuomo to stop foie gras ban

Upstate New York duck farmers beg Gov. Cuomo to stop foie gras ban

Upstate duck farmers are begging Gov. Andrew Cuomo to intervene and stop the City Council’s recent ban on the sale of foie gras — the controversial duck delicacy that’s enraged animal rights activists.

Starting in 2022, all sales of the French delicacy will be illegal, with violators facing up to $2,000 in penalties.

But Sergio Saravia, president of La Belle Farms in the Hudson Valley dubs the move “a fatal blow” to over 400 duck farmers statewide.

December 7, 2019 Morning

Good morning! Happy Saturday. Finally the weekend! Two weeks to First Day of Winter β˜ƒοΈ. Partly sunny and 26 and 2/5 degrees in Delmar, NY. β˜€Accentuate the positive, that is the 2/5th of a degree. Calm wind. There are 12 inches of snow on the ground. β˜ƒ ️Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 2 pm. 🌡️

A cold morning and my apartment got really cold ❄ by the middle of night but has warmed up nicely. I went out and knocked the snow off the solar panel on the truck and I should be ready to go 🚙 once I decide to head out this weekend.

I think I found the plug-in that was slowing down the blog, and I re-wrote it to avoid the problem. 🔌 I’m continuing to debug the revised code but hope to make it live today. The plug-ins you can get for WordPress are good but sometimes they aren’t a good fit for my blog, especially as it has grown and changed over the years. 💻

In a little bit I’m going to head to the library 📚 and switch over to the new code and maybe download a few more videos to watch later on today. 📹

I glued the tip of my skies 🎿 and I should be ready to go out later. I am thinking this afternoon of heading down to the Norman’s Kill Gorge. Assuming that the wind doesn’t pick up it should be pretty nice ski.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 30 degrees at 1pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical Light and variable wind becoming northwest 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 35 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1998. 5.5 inches of snow fell back in 2003.❄

The sun will set at 4:22 pm with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 6 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 Almost to the earliest sunset of the year. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 26 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 10 minutes of daytime, an decrease of one minute and 3 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 9 degrees at 5am. 15 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 13 at 3am; Calm wind. Brr. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 14 degrees. The record low of -3 occurred back in 1902.

Today in 1787, Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. 📄 And for football fans in 1963, Instant replay makes its debut during the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. 🏈 1972 today marked the end of an era — Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. 🌕 🚀The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth. 🌎 Then with 1970s rolling around they decided hanging out on the moon was pointless as it took away from dollars 💵 going to burn small children 👶with napalm 💥in Vietnam. Ain’t America a grand place to live?

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 4:29 pm with dusk at 5:01 pm. By then it will seem like it’s getting a little lighter in the evening. On that day in 2018, we had rain showers, cloudy, mild and temperatures between 50 and 35 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 32 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1982.

Monument to the Civilian Conservation Corp Worker