Our grandchildren will see a different shoreline, a different forest, and a different array of birds than we see.  We are familiar with cardinals, titmice, red-bellied woodpeckers and opossums that were not here in our grandparents' era.

When I first moved to Rhode Island in the early 1970s, seniors commented that outdoor skating, formerly possible by Thanksgiving, was often not safe in January. We haven't seen winter irruptions of redpolls and evening grosbeaks since the 1980s. Last year, cherry trees in Providence bloomed in late December.  Yes, the climate in Rhode Island is changing.

Early blooming is becoming more common.  Among the plants studied in Boston's Arnold Arboretum, flowering times have moved forward over the decades, with the plants flowering eight days earlier on average from 1980 to 2002 than they did from 1900 to 1920. What has influenced this early flowering? Primarily temperature, says Richard Primack, a Boston University biology professor and head of the research team.  According to Bio-Medicine, Boston's mean annual temperature has increased since 1985 by 1.5 degrees Celsius or nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and those temperatures are correlated with earlier blooming.

The Chipuxet River in South Kingstown is in crisis. The river is "stressed" in its streamflow.  This means that its low flows are getting lower and becoming more frequent. Research from URI has shown that water supply and irrigation demands are sufficient to dry up the Chipuxet River at times.

Audubon is continuing to monitor this situation while advocating that all Rhode Islanders adopt sound water conservation practices.