Because it’s just not bad enough that every summer is becoming hotter than the last, fires keep breaking out and are getting bigger and more dangerous than ever, and you can’t even remember the last time you wore a sweatshirt, now comes news that global warming has our hummingbird population is freakin’ starving.
Via the Desert Sun:
For migrating hummingbirds, the grocery store is the ocotillo and the food is the nectar held within its blossoms. As the tiny birds arrive each spring, they are finding more and more ocotillos are not open for business.
The problem isn’t that ocotillos are not blooming. They are. It’s that some are blooming too soon, before the arrival of migrating hummingbirds. A warmer environment is the explanation, a phenomenon associated with changing climatic conditions first brought to the public’s attention in the early 1980s.
Wait a second. People knew about this in the early 80s?? I mean, I get why they wouldn’t act immediately, what with all the cocaine and the John Hughes movies and the pegging of the pants, but it’s been nearly 40 years now!
Anyway, the Desert Sun story has an email that you can reach out to if you want to take part in a study to figure out how we can get the hummingbirds fed again, which seems like a decent thing to do.
