Fewer days of mind-numbing cold, snowy roads and frost-covered windows are a welcome respite from our winters of old. But not all creatures would agree.
Todd McLeish, Author at Rhode Island Monthly rimonthly.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rimonthly.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The climate is changing so quickly, some species common to Aquidneck can’t keep up.
Todd McLeish
Newport Life magazine
At the Sweet Flag Preserve adjacent to Bailey’s Brook in Middletown, Jameson Chace and his students at Salve Regina University spend two days a week each autumn capturing and banding birds as they fly through the area on migration. They’ve found it to be a hotspot of activity, and one that many birds depend on for rest and refueling before continuing on their long journey south.
“If there’s a migratory bird that comes through the Northeast, it’s shown up there,” says Chace, associate professor of biology and chairman of Salve’s biology and biomedical sciences department. “These little bits of riparian conservation zones are doing a whole lot more for wildlife than we probably ever imagined. That’s the big takeaway from our research.”