After 32 years of hunting ducks in the wetlands of Missouri, Chuck Geier knows when temperatures will drop and waters will freeze. That means he also knows when the birds will fly and hunting will be best.
Except that much of what he knows is now in question.
“It used to be by Dec. 6, this place was frozen,” said Mr. Geier, 51, a national sales manager for a telecommunications company. “That’s not true anymore.”
From the “prairie potholes” of Canada and the upper Midwest to the destination states of Arkansas and Louisiana, the rhythms of the cross-continental migratory bird route known as the Mississippi Flyway are changing.
In Missouri, where the average winter temperature has been rising, hunters say birds are arriving later and sticking around longer before bolting for warmer redoubts. Elsewhere, wetlands are not freezing over the way they once did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/us/11hunting.html?hp