BIG FLATS, N.Y. (WENY) -- The warm winter doesn't just affect people, animals can also see drastic changes in migration and hibernation. For us, a warm winter means more sunny days and getting outside more often, but certain animals can have their migration and hibernation patterns thrown off. 

In Chemung County this month, temperatures have climbed as high as 20 degrees above average. The sometimes April-like weather can impact wildlife to the point where they must change their behaviors to cope.

"Bird migration can be affected by different climate changes. Migration is a very intricate kind of behavior that these animals do, it's very well timed out but when you have these changing temperatures, sometimes it causes birds to stay behind too long or causes them to leave too early. Their breeding ground down in Southern areas will unfortunately not be ready for that kind of change. They might get there early, there might not be enough food in these breeding ranges for them to subsist on," said Ryan Donnelly, an educator at Tanglewood Nature Center, who also serves as the Reptile and Amphibian Curator.

For more stationary animals like the black bears, they can wake up from hibernation more often, but that requires high amounts of energy and more food intake.

"It takes a lot of energy for a bear to constantly wake up and go back to sleep, so when they're awake they have to eat about 20,000 calories a day just to sustain themselves. It can be kind of a problem if they are constantly waking up. It gets colder, it gets warmer, it kind of throws them into this weird behavior," added Donnelly.

Warmer conditions don't just bring mammals and birds back into the picture, but unwanted pests like ticks come around once again. We're expecting to see more warm days and more high temperature days including those above 45 degrees. Above that threshold is when ticks can re-appear and be a nuisance so make sure that you're checking yourself and any pets you have when you take them outside.