Letter: Disagreement on bird ranges

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Bob Duchesne thinks fox sparrows are unusual visitors ? No, they’re not!

They come every year around mid-March, like the first harbingers of spring. I found them in the Penobscot Bay area — in small bunches in the 1950s and 1960s.

The early bird this year was the phoebe. I think he is wrong to say the southern birds are moving north because of climate change.

Birds expand their range because they are curious, irruptive migrations, population changes, natural range expansion and pioneering.

There is still sufficient grass and weed seeds to satisfy seed-eating birds. Even they will feast upon insects of various stages.

Fred Hartman
Whiting