How climate change is affecting migratory birds

Attracted by the song broadcast by a tape recorder, the birds got tangled in the nets stretched among the brambles, elderberries and blackthorns. On this Thursday in July, the ringing season for migrants has just started in the Moëze-Oléron nature reserve (Charente-Maritime). The resort, located on an old dune surrounded by marshes, is one of the oldest in France. Like every day until mid-November, ornithologists moved ahead of sunrise to set their traps between the hedges.

Ringing program manager Pierre Rousseau delicately unhooks two sparrows, a nightingale, a starling, a warbler, a red-backed shrike and even a kingfisher from the net. He locks them up one by one in the dark, in small cloth bags, to reduce their stress.

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The stripping operation, like everything undertaken in this program carried out under the supervision of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), follows a strict protocol. “We…