In this corner of the world, Seidl wrote "species are moving on average three and a half miles per decade northward and twenty feet per decade upward in elevation."
Nature writer Marcia Bonta quotes Seidl in long and detailed article in her blog and in Pennsylvania Game News.
"The Longest Autumn" looks at what has happened in the woods and fields of central Pennsylvania over the past few decades. Bonta garners the details from her own meticulous note- and journal-keeping over decades in her home area.
"It rained on the winter solstice and the following day. But it was back to Indian summer the next two days before winter weather finally settled in, at least for a short time," she wrote. "What changes I have seen during my 41 years here on our central Pennsylvania mountaintop. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined, back in the 1970s, when autumn began at the beginning of September and ended at the end of November that the seasons would shift and autumn would become the longest season of the year."
Marcia Bonta did not respond to requests for an interview.
Dan Brauning, chief of wildlife diversity for Pennsylvania Game Commission, who was featured in Bonta's article, did agree to go on the record.
Brauning and Andrew Wilson of Gettysburg College are co-editors of the "Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania," a massive gathering of information on birds in the state.
Two of the book's chapters lay out the results of a six-year, 100,000-hour project involving volunteers who put together information on nearly 600 species of birds that nest in Pennsylvania.
More than two thousand dedicated birdwatchers completed their surveys of birds across the state from 2004 to 2009, and trained survey crews performed bird counts at more than 34,000 locations statewide.
Brauning cautioned that he is no expert on climate change or its causes.
He does know a thing or two about birds, though, and there are things going on in that world that signal changes are on the wing.
The indications are "that birds are moving their ranges north," he said.
Interestingly, some species of birds are expanding their ranges southward, Brauning said.
"Bird species are dynamic, changing for whole host of reasons. We can explain southerly to some degree, but northerly expansion is more broad-based. Climate seems to be the driving factor for those species moving north."
One example is the two species of chickadee found in the state. The range of the southern Carolina chickadee species and the northern black capped chickadee change-over is roughly here in southern Pennsylvania, said Brauning. However, the range of the Carolina chickadee has pushed northward 20 miles in 20 years.
"You could say climate is driving that," he said.
The warming climate changes the availability of food on which various birds feed, he said.
As to whether the changes are entirely driven by the evident warming of the climate, Brauning said the research in the book reflects "a lot of yeses and some no's. We didn't grind any axes pro or con climate change."
So: What can the ordinary person do to soften the blow of humanity on the landscape?
"There are any number of things," he said. "Practice better conservation methods, provide better habitat for wildlife, such as providing brushy cover for birds. Keep your cats inside. Nothing against cats, but just one cat can devastate the population of birds in its range.
"You can also reduce your carbon imprint. Each of us in our own way has to decide what we can accomplish."
--Source: Read Marcia Bonta's blog post at http://marciabonta.com/2012/11/02/the-longest-autumn.