Title: Where have all the hummingbirds gone? Post by: Donna on 02-Jun-12, 07:19:35 AM The lily, a plant that grows best on subalpine slopes, is fast becoming a hothouse flower. In Earth's warming temperatures, its first blooms appear some 17 days earlier than they did in the 1970s, scientists David Inouye and Amy McKinney of the University of Maryland and colleagues have found.
The problem, say the biologists, with the earlier timing of these first blooms is that the glacier lily is no longer synchronized with the arrival of broad-tailed hummingbirds, which depend on glacier lilies for nectar. http://phys.org/news/2012-05-hummingbirds.html (http://phys.org/news/2012-05-hummingbirds.html) Title: Re: Where have all the hummingbirds gone? Post by: MAK on 02-Jun-12, 09:31:05 AM Another victim of global warming! :gum:
Title: Re: Where have all the hummingbirds gone? Post by: Patti from Kentucky on 03-Jun-12, 01:10:19 AM There is a native woodland plant called Jewelweed that is a favorite food of hummingbirds when they begin their fall migration, and on my trail run today through my local woods, I noticed it was already full of blooms (well over a month early). Makes me a little concerned that the big buffet will be finished blooming before the hummers are ready to return South.
The upside: maybe more of them will stop by my backyard feeder :happy:. |