Natural History Wanderings

Audubon reports

As climate change fuels stronger storms, scientists are using emerging technology and crowdsourcing data to understand their avian toll.

This hurricane season is off to a slow start, but as of early August the U.S. Climate Prediction Center still called for it to be above-normal. Between 6 and 10 hurricanes could barrel across the Atlantic basin by the end of November, the center projected, with 3 to 5 of them rated major.

How the season plays out has high stakes not only for people—hurricanes are historically the deadliest and costliest natural disasters—but also for birds. Tropical cyclones, including hurricanes, have a history of shredding habitat, which is especially dangerous for rare non-migratory species that live only on a single island or archipelago. The Bahama Nuthatch, for instance, had its population whittled down by a series of storms and hasn’t been seen since Hurricane Dorian roared through its final stronghold in 2019.

Read more at How Bird Researchers Are Tracking the Impacts of Intensifying Hurricane Seasons