How on Earth Are Birds Surviving During Chicago's Incredible Cold Snap?

[douglas9]

Chicago is shuddering. With temperatures dropping down to -20 degrees Fahrenheit (colder, with the windchill), school is canceled, museums are closed, and transit agencies are relying on flaming, kerosene-soaked ropes to warm up steel tracks. The temperatures are life-threatening, and several 24-hour warming sheltersare open. Humans are trying their best to hunker down, but what are the region’s birds supposed to do?

Though the city’s feathered denizens can die in the subzero temperatures—from hypothermia or starvation, if their food sources are locked up in frozen bodies of water—many are generally equipped to handle at least a short burst of bracing cold.

Some of Chicago’s wintertime residents have popped down from their breeding grounds in the Arctic—snowy owls, common redpolls, and snow buntings are known to drop by the Windy City in the cold months, says Alexandra Anderson, a graduate student in environmental and life sciences at Trent University, who studies Arctic birds. “These species may be able to tolerate colder temperatures than other species,” Anderson says. The current temperatures are the harshest that many of the city’s other avian urbanites have seen in their lifetimes—but even so, any bird that winters in Chicago is accustomed to heavy snow and fierce wind. “Species that spend the winter regularly in the region have evolved lots of different ways to deal with these cold snaps,” says John Bates, associate curator of birds at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/01/how-on-earth-are-birds-surviving-during-chicagos-incredible-cold-snap/

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. The fat they accumulate during the winter keeps them warm...

The same with Canada Geese. The fat is to keep fowl warm.

Ever wonder why the Inuits of Alaska never get frostbite? They eat plenty of Omega 3 fats found in Walrus and fish. It is also why they suffer less heart issues than those who injest more of the animal fats, butter, etc.

[2naSalit]

2. What I learned from living in a place where

these subzero temps are common in winter is that some birds will use man=made things to keep warm. I have witnessed a few techniques that I thought interesting. I have seen ravens huddled under large awnings and overhangs to keep warm. I have also seen crows huddle in trees together, about a hundred in one tree in my yard. Many who winter in the region live in tree hollows which, with some insulation, can be pretty nice.

I watch the eagles in my area and I don't see them in much distress in winter, those who remain that is as many do migrate out, seem to brave it without a whole lot of cover or huddling. They do warm themselves on dark rocks in the sun.

I have also seen wrens, having filled up a wren house the previous night, with as many as fifteen birds emerging in the morning. That was not in a subzero environment but it was pretty cold for the tiny birds.

I love to watch wildlife, birds are one of my favorite animals.

[3Hotdogs]

3. Some will dig into snow before it freezes. Snow acts as barrier against wind chill.

[LuvLoogie]

4. D. H. Lawrence