Since we are going to have to suffer through the bad parts of the greenhouse effect, we might as well enjoy the good parts. Our sunny, warm, nearly snowless January may be a sign of our impending doom, but at least it will cut into the profits of Peoples Gas.
Fortunately, Carolina wrens sing a very distinctive song, a bright, whistled phrase usually described as sounding very much like “teakettle, teakettle.” They sing year-round, so even winter birds can be identified by sound.
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Their security carries a price, however. They can live only where they can survive year-round. They can’t take advantage of the huge crop of mosquitoes in the north woods in the summer and then head for Louisiana when the leaves start to fall. And if things go bad on their home ground, they are more likely to starve or freeze where they are than to escape to some more hospitable place.
Another feature of the distribution of animals–and plants, for that matter–is that they are likely to be much more abundant in the heart of their range than they are out on the frontiers. The scarcity of animals at the edge of their ranges is partly the result of difficulties with the climate and partly the result of scarce habitat.
Lacking the grand mobility of more aerial species, especially in regions like ours where expressways and other very dangerous obstacles confine them to scattered islands, bobwhites don’t bounce back quickly from hard winters. Most of the small amount of good bobwhite habitat we have is devoid of them, and barring deliberate introductions, their absence is likely to be permanent.
