bucephala clangula (Osculated porrón)
All animals always look for the best place to protect themselves from cold or heat. Many of them spend some season very far from their natural habitat, but as the global average temperature is increasing, their behavior changes, as is happening to the "rare birds" that arrive in Spain.
According to the latest report from the SEO / BirdLife Rarities Committee, which has been published in the scientific journal 'Ardeola', circumpolar species are less and less frequent, while African species are, on the contrary, more common.
For SEO / BirdLife, this change experienced by northern birds is related to the milder arctic winters, and the one that is beginning to be seen in southern species with the progressive warming of the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, for example, the orange bulbul (Pycnonotus barbatus), of African distribution, has been located in Tarifa, where it has begun to reproduce, and the red-legged booby (sula sula), a seabird native to the Caribbean, has begun to arrive in this part of the world.
The data revealed by the report, which correspond to the species sighted in 2015, are "significant and worrying", and allow conclusions to be drawn about the effect that climate change is having on the environment and, especially, on the birds.
Pycnonotus barbatus (Orange Bulbul)
Birds are animals that, like the rest, if the conditions of their habitat improve they decide to stay. And is that, energy economy is basic in living beings. For this reason, the SEO / BirdLife list of rare bird species will probably increase as the years go by and temperatures continue to rise, unless, of course, really effective measures are taken to curb climate change.
If you want to read the report, you can click here.