Climate impacts on birds, agriculture linked-13 September 2011, The Morung Express

In the days of yore, farmers forecast the weather by looking at the behaviour of birds.  “When sparrows bathe in the dust, it rains,” they would say.
But as climate change alters weather patterns in northeast India, it is changing traditional knowledge – and threatening local birds that long have helped farmers control pests in their fields. Birds are “the real friend of farmers,” says Prabal Saikia, an agricultural ornithology specialist at the Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS) in North Lakhimpur, in India’s Assam province.
But these days, “the decline in the bird population has increased the insect population, thereby increasing crop damage,” he said.

Climate impacts on birds, agriculture linked