Today's climate change spotlight: Robins in Canada's arctic

[Newsjock]

Source: Nunatsiaq News

When Dave Boileau was out on a walk Monday evening near his home in Iqaluit's Happy Valley, he saw a sign of spring that's usually reserved for the South: a pair of chubby, red-breasted robins.

... Their expansion into the Eastern Arctic may lead to changes in maps detailing the robin's range. Most bird population maps and reference books show there are no robins at all in Nunavut or Nunavik.

Over the past year, several other unusual bird sightings have been reported around the circumpolar world, such as house sparrows in northern Alaska and a Chinese pond heron in Finland. Last summer, a belted kingfisher was seen in Cambridge Bay, about 800 kilometres north of its normal range.

Birds have also shown up at the wrong time. Birds like robins and ducks that would normally fly south from Scandinavia were seen there last December - long after snow usually drives them south.

Read more: http://nunatsiaq.com/news/climate/80613_1287.html