One Saturday morning in June, Amy Simmons spotted some sparrows flitting around a coastal marsh in Maine.
She and her two companions, all dedicated bird-watchers, quickly identified one of the foraging birds as a Nelson’s sparrow, a small, round bird with a yellow stripe over its eye.
The stripe over this sparrow’s eye had a more saturated, orange tint, and its breast was speckled with black and white.
It was a saltmarsh sparrow, a species threatened by sea level rise.
Without significant conservation action, climate change could render the species extinct by the middle of this century, some scientists predict.
Persons:
Amy Simmons, ”, Simmons, Ms
Organizations:
National Audubon Society, Cornell, of Ornithology
Locations:
Maine