Ring-necked duck, male (photo by Polinova, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

5 November 2026

This fall I’ve noticed that birds are migrating later than they used to. This is especially true for waterfowl because they wait until the northern lakes start freezing before they migrate.

In 2008 with help from my friend Chuck Tague, author of The Nature Observer News, I posted a monthly phenology. Each post listed “What to Look for” but the timeframes are wrong now because of climate change. For instance, What to Look For in Early November says we should expect tundra swans flying over between November 9 and 15. That’s way too early nowadays.

We don’t know November’s stats yet so I compared this October to my article What To Look For In October, which was updated in 2016. In October 2016 I wrote:

“Last Sunday (9 October 2016) at Pymatuning the Three Rivers Birding Club found wood ducks, blue winged teal, northern shovelers, gadwalls, American wigeons, mallards, green-winged teal, ring-necked ducks, and ruddy ducks.”

Were any of these ducks at Pymantuning at any time in October? I compared the 9 October 2016 species list to October 2026 eBird reports from Pymantuning. Notice how few were there in the table below.

Temperatures north of Pymatuning played a big part in the change. Since I don’t have that data I’ll use Pymatuning’s nearest weather station (Youngstown, Ohio) as a proxy. Note that 2016 fluctuated from 29°F to 79°F; this year was 29°F to 83°F. However the patterns were different. Daily temperature ranges this year were quite wide. This year, even when it was cold overnight, the day heated up fast above normal.

The ducks have decided there’s no reason to come south. Will they get here in November? December? We’ll have to wait and see.