All posts tagged: Winters

Thanks to Britain’s mild winters, chiffchaffs are staying put | UK news

Thanks to Britain’s mild winters, chiffchaffs are staying put | UK news

Published by Jenni Sidey

For many birders, the first proper sign of spring comes when they hear the cheery two-note song of the chiffchaff, a small, migratory warbler which, like the kittiwake and the cuckoo, is named after the sound it makes. Chiffchaffs spend the winter far closer to home than most other members of their family: the majority heading to Spain, Portugal or north-west Africa. This is in sharp contrast to their close relative the willow warbler, which heads all the way across the Saharato southern Africa, and usually arrives back here from early April, two or three weeks later than the chiffchaff. But thanks to a long run of very mild winters in southern Britain – a clear consequence of the global climate crisis – some chiffchaffs are now staying put. They now spend the winter close to their breeding areas, often near water where small insects are more numerous. This, along with the unseasonably warm spell in mid-March, explains why this spring, chiffchaffs began to appear a few days earlier than usual. The British Trust for …

As Winters Warm, Falling Through the Ice Is Becoming More Common — and Deadly

As Winters Warm, Falling Through the Ice Is Becoming More Common — and Deadly

Published by Sam Flores

Elmer Brown was following two friends on his four-wheeler last November, hunting caribou across a frozen channel in northern Alaska when the ice gave way. All three plunged into the frigid water. One friend drowned, and Brown, 45, later died of hypothermia, leaving behind five children. “He was always helping other people and sharing his catch with the elders,” said his brother Jimmy Brown. “It’s been tough, not seeing him. I keep expecting him to walk in and tell me about his day.” The friends had ventured onto the ice to hunt caribou, under pressure to make the most of shorter and less reliable hunting seasons, Jimmy Brown said. It wasn’t the first time the family had lost someone to the ice. The Brown brothers’ father drowned in 1999 while seal hunting. They’re among thousands who have died on ice across the Northern Hemisphere in recent decades as warming winters make conditions thinner and less predictable for those who fish, hunt and recreate on frozen lakes, rivers and coastal waters. March and April are particularly …

Warmer Winters Leave Pakistan Festival on Thin Ice

Warmer Winters Leave Pakistan Festival on Thin Ice

Published by Sam Flores

HUNZA VALLEY, Pakistan, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Every winter for decades, the pool in front of Aleena Gul’s house in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley has transformed into an ⁠ice rink, ⁠framed by jagged Himalayan peaks and the stone walls of Altit Fort. This year, ⁠it did not. Gul can see the swimming pool that doubles as a hockey arena from her bedroom. For years, she would wake up at dawn, lace her skates and step straight from her front door ​onto solid ice. After four years away at university, she returned eager to play again, but has found herself waiting for winter to arrive. “There’s a big difference between 2018 and now,” said Gul, 21, captain of her team and among the first women in Hunza to take up the sport. “Winter used to begin in November ‌and everything would freeze. It’s January now and the ice still hasn’t frozen ‌properly.” Across Pakistan’s northern mountains, winters are arriving later and behaving unpredictably. Cold spells are shorter, freeze–thaw cycles unstable. In the wider Hindu Kush–Himalayan region, scientists …

3 desert hikes near L.A. to try before winter’s end

3 desert hikes near L.A. to try before winter’s end

Published by Sam Flores

After losing count of just how many bush poppy shrubs were blooming around me, I snapped a few photos of the delicate yellow flowers and texted them to my friend and colleague, Jeanette Marantos. I didn’t expect to find so many blooming plants along the Mormon Rocks Interpretive Trail in San Bernardino National Forest. Jeanette, The Times’ plants writer, was often tasked each spring with answering whether Southern California would see a superbloom, and I had planned to tease her about whether this counted. I didn’t realize our short text exchange would be the last time we’d speak. Jeanette, a beloved mother, grandmother, plant queen and journalist, died Saturday from a sudden heart emergency. We, the entire Times Features team, are devastated, along with the rest of our colleagues who knew her. “She was the most loving person I ever met, probably to a fault in some cases. If she knew you and you were a part of her life, she was fiercely loyal always,” said her son, Sascha Smith. Jeanette started writing for the …

Sure, Britain’s constant rain can dampen spirits. But I’ll take it every time over the bone-chilling New York winters | Emma Brockes

Sure, Britain’s constant rain can dampen spirits. But I’ll take it every time over the bone-chilling New York winters | Emma Brockes

Published by Jenni Sidey

Whenever it rained when I was a child, my mother did something that seemed normal at the time yet seems quite mad looking back: she dragged the huge, heavy plants from the living room – the massive bird of paradise; the hulking clivias in their enormous tubs – out on to the patio so they could “enjoy a drink”. She came from the southern hemisphere where water was in short supply and, while she grew depressed every January and hated English winters, she never found rain less than thrilling. Well, here we are in February after more than a month of what the Met Office is delicately calling the “unusually southerly jet stream”, what Shakespeare neatly immortalised with “for the rain it raineth every day” and what the rest of us have been summarising with the sentiment “is it ever going to fucking stop”? I’m English, so talking about rain and its related conditions occupies 30% of my personality at any given time, but most of us have hit a wall at this point. According …

For athletes, warmer winters mean harder snow and tricky ice

For athletes, warmer winters mean harder snow and tricky ice

Published by skeptic

Sarah Cookler remembers the first time she saw a racecourse covered with just artificial snow. “It was in the Pyrenees mountains in France,” she recalls. “The snow run had grass on either side.” Cookler was coaching Team USA at the International Ski Mountaineering Federation’s World Youth Cup. Ski mountaineering — also known as “skimo” — is a sprint up and down a snow-covered mountain. It was March 2023, almost the end of ski season. The snow run was beat up and compacted. It was also a warm day during an unseasonably hot month worldwide. “Gosh, it was probably around 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.” Cookler recalls. “The conditions were wet.” Her team had never before competed on a warm, slick course. In warm or dry winters, many ski competitions take place on artificial snow, such as here at Val-Louron, a ski resort in the French Pyrenees, in March 2023. It was an unusually warm month worldwide.S. Cookler Dry, yellow grass bordered the starting line. The team warmed up by stretching and running on it. Then …

A Horny Winter’s Night With the Tom of Finland Crowd

A Horny Winter’s Night With the Tom of Finland Crowd

Published by Jenni Sidey

The vibe of the night was, in a word, horny: As they arrived in the main room, guests were greeted by a life-sized bronze nude sculpture (which had been dressed in a harness just for the event), and a gigantic leather-boot-shaped cake by the New York baker Yip.Studio. In a festive touch, bondage-themed wreaths—crafted by Apparatus’s founder and creative director Gabriel Hendifar—hung from the room’s walls. (It was only once I saw the boot cake and belted wreaths side by side that it occurred to me that the booted-and-belted Santa Claus might have a sort of Tom of Finland thing going on, but that’s a topic for another time.) This event, according to chief curator Brooke Wise, was intended to “reframe Tom of Finland’s legacy for the present moment, honoring its roots and positioning it within a contemporary cultural and aesthetic conversation.” Eventually, I made my way through the room to marvel at Tom’s iconic homoerotic drawings up close: detailed depictions of ultra-ripped bikers, policemen, soldiers, and manly men of all sorts, all impressively well-endowed, …