The Confusion of Mangoes
Cecile was just telling me about a dinner where the guests noted the sudden profusion of mangoes in supermarkets. Apparently mango season came early this year: mangoes don’t usually arrive till summer. According to a food writer, the mangoes were confused by shifts in the weather—they thought it was already summer, so they bore fruit.
Meanwhile, our correspondent reports that “Winter in Austria is the all-time damp squib. When I arrived last September the locals took great pleasure in warning me of just what was in store: Snow-drifts of one metre, heaping up in only 50 minutes…Birds falling lifeless from the sky like feathered bricks…Icicles of snot hanging from one’s nostrils…Well, that was last winter. This winter we’ve so far seen six snowflakes and the temperature has dropped fractionally below freezing on maybe ten nights since late October. The buds on the trees are beginning to burst and the birds are so fat they can barely screw each other, which they’ve already begun doing. Local sages and ancients shake their hoary heads and say ‘It isn’t over yet. I well remember in the winter of 1929…’ etc. It’s all rather cheering, and most of all that ski resorts are going broke. God knows they’ve done enough to disfigure the Alps in the last half-century. Maybe now the innocent mountains will be allowed to reclaim some of their ‘Sound of Music’ virginity, and bunches of Edelweiss will be back on sale and children in Lederhosen will pipe up ‘Doe, a deer, a female deer’ in marketplaces throughout the land. . .”
I heard from someone else that the migratory patterns of birds were changing suddenly, as if their instinctual clocks were out of kilter. Confused fruit and disoriented birds. Weird weather and ecological imbalance. What next: Snow in the tropics?
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
January 23rd, 2007 at 02:36
Today in Copenhagen we got the first snowfall of the winter. In January. I was all a-twitter seeing snow, as I’d never seen snow ever. And then I saw my first dead frozen pigeon lying on the cobblestone.
January 23rd, 2007 at 03:02
I heard rumors that Koreans are bringing snow to Baguio this February… faux snow that is. I wonder if they’ll produce enough to make snow angels.
January 23rd, 2007 at 16:54
Same problem in Belgium – temperatures were so warm in December and early January that birds thought it was spring and started reproducing, so there are hatchlings everywhere. But now winter’s back (frost and below zero temperatures are being forecast for the week) so local bird watchers are worried that they’ll all be wiped out by the cold.
January 23rd, 2007 at 22:35
effects of global warming.
January 24th, 2007 at 00:50
tropical snow? hmmm… love the ring to it. filipinos will do business for halo-halo profusely. ice grinders will no longer be needed. and most important is, filipinos would finally know that ‘winter wonderland’ is not totally cool. and the american dream will be less attractive.
and btw, it is not such a crazy possibility since we had a hailstorm when i was in high school back in our city in the South.
January 24th, 2007 at 03:41
We’ve had the mildest January in England, I don’t ever recall being able to go out wearing just a t-shirt and jeans. And birds are pairing up much earlier. (amazed the same things are happening in other European countries) Then came the 90mph gales. And sudden drop in temperature the past couple of days. Then watching An Inconvenient Truth. To think my parents used to laugh when I joined university environmental clubs.
January 24th, 2007 at 15:24
weather confusion’s also in here at Melbourne. We’ve had showers for days now which interrupted the Aussie Open games in outdoor courts. And it’s supposed to be summer with temperature around 40 degrees. Folks round here say they haven’t had such rain shower medleys for years. Weather’s unpredictable, yes, but any reason for such big changes globally? I’m thinking plate tectonics or lunar activities, hubby reckons it’s global warming. i certainly want to know what’s the real cause. anybody?