This week in birds - #540

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment: 

The redbud tree is in bloom and the American Goldfinch is beginning to bloom, too. This one is just beginning to show its summer colors. Soon it will be transformed into a much more brilliant yellow and black.

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This year's Farm Bill could actually help some grassland species like the Bobolink that are in danger of disappearing from America's prairies.

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The famous California mountain lion called P-22 was given a tribal burial this week in the mountains where he once roamed.

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Spring is arriving about three weeks early throughout the continent. Trees, like my redbud, are already sprouting leaves and blooming.

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A toxic algae bloom called the "red tide" is killing tons of fish along Florida's west coast.

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This is the Dusky Tetraka, a songbird of Madagascar that had been thought to be extinct. It has been rediscovered by a team searching the tropical forests in the northeastern part of that country.

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Have they been looking for life in all the wrong places? A European probe that launches next month will be scanning the moons of Jupiter for potential signs of life.

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This winter in the northern hemisphere has featured some significantly weird weather. Is it all because of climate change or is there something else afoot?

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It's not news of this planet but NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, is sending back some very interesting pictures.

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Here are our five grassland species of birds that are most in danger of disappearing.

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Conservation organizations are dropping the name of John James Audubon in response to information about his white supremacist beliefs.

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The python invasion of Florida no longer affects only the Everglades but extends into nearly all of the southern part of the state. 

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Antarctica's sea ice is melting and that is bad news for Earth's land masses. 

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This is the Gray-breasted Parakeet, the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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To save Earth, we need to save Earth's seas. A new treaty may help to do that.

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How we can best protect butterfly species becomes a legal question.

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An explosion of seaweed growth in the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is visible from space.

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What animal species are most in danger of going extinct? Scientists believe they know. 

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The city of Pompeii was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. and yet it lives on through the excavations of it. More and more is being revealed about life in the city. 

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A coalition of groups is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to, in fact, protect the environment by reforming dangerous neonicotinoid pesticides. 

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A majority of members of the United Nations have agreed on language for a treaty that would protect ocean biodiversity. 

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A technique known as proteomics is used to analyze ancient human protein and it could unlock secrets of our species' evolution. 

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A U.S. Forest Service logging plan that targets mature trees is angering residents in Kentucky.

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Recent DNA discoveries reveal more of the history of the early hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe.

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The plan for restoring bison to America's prairies focuses on expanding herds on Native American lands.

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A creature called the sunflower sea star has been enlisted in the effort to control sea urchins in the kelp forests off the Pacific Coast of the continent.

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One of the world's rarest populations of lions is in Senegal, but that population recently increased by three when a cat named Florence gave birth to three healthy cubs.