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The Changing Seasons: Drought, Fire, Plague, and a Penguin

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The Changing Seasons: Drought, Fire, Plague, and a Penguin The Changing Seasons: Drought, Fire, Plague,and a Penguin Droughtsand fires occasion summer wandering in a greatmany species, as the birdingannals of June--July2002 attest. Buthow did this Humboldt Penguincome to becaught in fishingnets off Prince of Wales Island, Alaska on 18 July2002? Photographcourtesy of GuyDemn7ert. MatthewF. Sharp entirepopulations perhaps, by thedrought and widespread fires in north- VIREO,Academy of NaturalSciences ern Mexico,the northernportion of theBaja California Peninsula, south- 1900 BenjaminFranklin Parkway ern California, the arid Southwest, the Great Basin, and the Central Philadelphia,Pennsylvania 19103 Rockies.Few regional editors commented in detailon the displacement (email:[email protected]) per se,but mostregional reports in the vicinityof the deoughtand fires containnumerous early dates for migrants,records of wanderersat odd ummerissupposed torepresent alull, a time when birds are at their altitudes,and birds out of habitatand range. most sedentary.With many having completedtheir northward To backup a bit to theseasons beginnings: the cold and wet conditions "springe'migration, they raise young beforemoving south again in in late May and Junein the northernRockies and northwesternboreal "autumn."The scenariois, of course,misleading in thecontext of a great forestsare believedto havedelayed arrival of manymigrant breeding many spedes.The accompanyingphotograph of a HumboldtPenguin species(Dinsmore 2002) and ultimately to haveled to verypoor repro- caught18 July 2002 by fishermennear Noyes Island off of Princeof Wales ductivesuccess for a widevariety of northern-nestingspecies. As Michael Island,Alaska provides a neededreminder that completelyunexpected Harrisonput it, Albertaexperienced "all four seasonsin Juneand July, birdsturn up evenduring supposedlystatic seasons such as summer. sometimesin oneday." Snowfall in both Juneand Julyin the mountains Whetherthis bird wanderednorthward from the southernhemisphere of that provincecertainly must have made things difficult for montane under the influenceof seawatercurrents, strayed from a coastalzoo, breedingspecies there. In thecentral portion of thecontinent, dimate was aquarium,or themepark, or escapedfrom a foreignfishing vessel on morevariable, with intra-regionaldifferences in bothheat and precipita- whichit waskept as a"pet," we'll never know. Whatever its source, the bird tion. Torrential rains came in northeastern North Dakota and northwest- turnedup at a timewhen the extreme,even the absurdseemed to be the ern Minnesota,where flooding was a problem,while South Dakota and normin theworld of birdsand birding. much of the northernGreat Plains were under drought conditions, as weremost of the southernGreat Plains, especially Nebraska. The Great Climatic Patterns Lakes,Middlewestern Prairie, and Central Southernregions received This summerseason was againmarked by superlativeclimatic condi- more rain than areasto the westor east,though some areas in all three tions-chiefly extremeheat and continueddeought--through much of regionssuffered below-normal water levels. South-central Texas experi- the continent.This undoubtedlyled to the displacementof manybirds, enced severe floods. 402 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS ChangingSeasons U.S. Drough MonRor • •bnor•l• D• D•ht •mp•ct . D•Drou•eder• A=Agicu•u•e D2Drou•ere WF == F Water ire dan•er(Hydrological) •ildfir•) • • Droug•eme •Delinea•sdominant imp•c• • • Dreu•ienal (Ne •pe = All 3 impa•) Figure1. TheU.S. Drought Monitor Map for the periodending 30 July2002. TheU.S. Drought Monitor is a partnershipbetween the NationalDrought Lo•' co•d• ma• •ar•. See accompanying te•ummary for fetecast g•tem•n•. MitigationCenter, United States Department of Agriculture,and National •p:#dmuuhl.unl.edu Idm Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesyof NDMC-UNL. With the exceptionof Florida,where heavy rain brought much-needed Valley.It istempting to seethese unusual records as effects of droughtand waterback to dry weftands,the entireEast Coast suffered under drought fires,as in pastdry seasons(e.g., summer1996). or near-drought.A coldlate spring,with substantialsnow as late as 18 Interestingly,the two regionsreporting the most moderateweather May in New England,led to nestfailure in somedosely monitored early conditions,Texas and the Pacific Northwest, also found the seasonto be nesterssuch as Peregrines and Bald Eagles, as well as cavity nesters such as full of excitingstrays and vagrants. Mlodinow called the season"a mag- EasternBluebird in theNortheast. The wet, cool early June did help ame- nificent one for birding," and Lockwood,Shackelford, and Sekula lioratethe effects of anexceptionally hot and dry July in NewEngland and describedit as"one of themost exciting in recentyears: Totally unrelated theHudson-Delaware region. To the south, it washot anddry, with many to drought or fire, vagrant-of-the-seasonhonors go to the Juan areas experiencingsevere drought, especiallyin Georgia,Virginia, FernfindezPetrel 80 km off of Brookings,Oregon 7 June(only the second Maryland,and North Carolina--thePiedmont in particular.However, report for North Americanwaters), a well-documentedmale Siberian unlikedrought-stricken areas in the West,adverse effects on the repro- Blue Robin in a gardenin Dawson,Yukon 9 June(first for the North ductivesuccess of breedingbirds were not describedhere, and regional Americanmainland), an apparentjuvenile Belcher's Gull at Natural editorscalled the nestingseason "largely successful" (Hudson-Delaware) BridgesState Park, SantaCruz County,California 6 July(potentially a or "relativelysuccessful" (Southern Ariantic Coast), though these are state and continental second),and a White-collared Swift at Rondeau impressionsbased on anecdotalevidence rather than comparisonsof ProvincialPark, Ontario 10 June(a first for Canada). If therewere a cat- standardizedlong-term data sets. An exceptionwas the MiddleAftantic egoryfor raresthybrid, the awardwould surelygo to the apparent Coastregion, where weak patterns of unseasonaloccurrences, as in the Sutton'sWarbler at Sandyston,New Jersey in earlyJune. Who sayssum- summerof 1999,led Iliff to speculatethat failedbreeding birds from the meris boring? higherelevations might have been displaced eastward by dry conditions. Birds'variable responses to dry conditionsacross the continent,in a Drought summerthat was arguably the driest since the 1930s,made for interesting The seasoh'sdry conditionsmade headlines in newspapersacross the regionalcommentary and inter-regionalcomparisons. Whereas birds in nation.According to theNational Drought Monitor, "more than one-third the arid regionsof the Westare adaptedto the extremesof thoseclimes (about 36 percent)of the contiguousUnited Stateswas in severeto (includingfrequent fires in someareas)--and may have a greatertenden- extremedrought, based on thePalmer Drought Index, at the end of June cyto wanderwhen conditions prohibit successful nesting-•eastern birds 2002.This is comparableto the sizeand durationof the droughtthat inhabita comparativelymore homogenousenvironment, one in which peakedacross the U.S. during the summer of 1988,but onlythe Dust Bowl wanderingmight offer lessadvantage in terms of finding necessary of the 1930sand the Droughtof the 1950sstand out asmore significant resources.This seasonwas distinguished by above-averagenumbers of [...] droughtssince the beginning of thetwentieth century." Perhaps more high-intensityfires in the Southwestand MountainWest especiall• Of tellingly,tree-ring data show no periodsof droughtmore extensiveor course,when read closely, regional reports from almostall regionsin all prolongedthan the 1930dust bowl period in thepast 300 years(Cook et yearsinclude details of birdsin unusuallocations, at unexpecteddeva- al. 1996). So the currentconditions are severeeven when consideredfrom tions,or out of season;but thissummer, the Southern Padtic Coast report the longerperspective of threecenturies. The NationalDrought Monitor seemedparticularly loaded, with a numberof mountain- or foothill- Map (Fig.1) showsthe areas in theUnited States hit thehardest bythe end breedingspecies making unusualappearances in California'sCentral of the reportingperiod. Drought conditions were also extreme in the VOLUME 56 (2002), NUMBER 4 403 northernBaja California Peninsula, northern Mexico, the Bahamas,and displacedbreeders. Unseasonable waterfowl reports from Quebec (tndud- the Canadian Prairies. ing prairie-nestingspecies such as Redhead, Ruddy Duck, and Northern Droughts'effects on birds vary widely, but in termsof reproductivesuc- Shoveler),Virginia, California (especiallyBlue-winged Teal), and all cess,the effectsof droughtare generallynegative. Well-known effects throughthe prairiestates were also attributed to droughtin the usual ,ncludedelayed, reduced, or abandonedbreeding attempts, nest failure, breedingareas, but widespreadreports, for instance,of Ross'sGeese tn the htghrates of nestlingmortality, and unusual patterns of dispersal.Teasing Lower48 probablyindicated injured birds, more numerous in summer out broad-scalepatterns of drought-inducedavian dispersal from the now that the specieshas become a regularwinter visitor across so much regmnalreports is a tenuoustask, but severalwidespread movements of of the continent. consptcuousspecies do seemdrought-related. The most dramaticand Wilson'sPhalaropes were also apparently dispersed by drought,and obv,ouseffects of droughtare on waterbirds,whose breeding biology is this contributedto an impressionof greaterabundance in areaswhere
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