November 1st and still no real frost in central New Hampshire where I have lived for 45 years. In those early years here in the 1970s, gardeners were warned to expect a first frost by September 15, and there was natural snow on the upper slopes of Mount Sunapee by mid-October. But today it is sunny and almost 60 degrees. Our bees are still buzzing the bright red roses that continue to bloom and fresh herbs are still available outside our kitchen. I am sure that the bears are still roaming about hoping that I’ll put out my birdfeeders as I used to do on November 1st, but I know better now.

Most birds like most humans adapt well to change - within limits. In our region, we have birds that migrate south for the winter, others that migrate into our region after breeding further north, and some that just hang around. But the outer boundaries of migration for many birds are changing as the climate changes and habitats or food supplies shift to the north or to higher altitudes. And for some bird species the limits of adaptation will be exceeded without any mitigation of current warming trends and the effects those trends are already causing.

In New Hampshire assuming that the current rate of warming continues through the century, 112 species of winter and summer birds are at high or moderate risk of disappearing from our state. Most will have simply shifted their habitat range to the north, but some will fail to find supportive habitats and fade towards extinction. Even the purple finch, our state bird, may need to move far into the Canadian tundra. The photos in today’s blog are a few New Hampshire birds considered vulnerable in this way, and you can find this information for your state or province at this link.

Only about 7% of Americans are completely dismissive of climate science and the changes that it has been predicting for over 100 years. They are probably all unreachable. The other 93% have reactions ranging from doubt to genuine alarm. All of them are reachable. In a 2018 TED talk, Katherine Hayhoe, who calls herself an evangelical Christian climate scientist, said that the most important thing that we can do about climate change is to talk about it every day.

But, as Greta Thunberg has said about talk, “Blah, blah, blah.” Because the other necessary ingredient is hope - not hope as wishful thinking, but hope as a practice like yoga or mindfulness, hope that fuels action. Jane Goodall has recently published a new book titled The Book of Hope in which through a series of conversations she outlines the reasons for her own hopefulness about the survival of the planet and its biodiversity. I believe that we each have to take action - in our personal lives but also in our communities, with our communities.

Ode to Hope by Pablo Neruda

Oceanic dawn
at the center
of my life.
Waves like grapes,
the sky's solitude,
you fill me
and flood
the complete sea,
the undimished sky,
tempo
and space,
seafoam's white
battalions,
the orange earth,
the sun's
fiery waist
in agony,
so many
gifts and talents,
birds soaring into their dreams,
and the sea, the sea,
suspended
aroma,
chorus of rich, resonant salt,
and meanwhile,
we men,
touch the water,
struggling and hoping,
we touch the sea
hoping.

And the waves tell the firm coast;
"Everything will be fulfilled"