This week in birds - #590

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

This white buffalo (bison) calf was born recently in Yellowstone National Park. For the Lakota people it is seen as the fulfillment of a prophecy. 

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The Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia has proved extremely deadly this year because of the extreme heat. At least 1300 people have died due to heat-related factors.

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For those who live in areas not strongly affected by city lights, the coming weeks offer some prime summer night sky viewing interest.

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A rise in wildfires is being driven by the effects of climate change.

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Many wild things have adapted to living in our cities.

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Colombia is a bird-watchers paradise and, now that a peace deal between warring parties there has been agreed to, it is expected that more birders will be making trips to the country.

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Marine life traffickers are busily smuggling corals into the country. 

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Traffickers are far from the only hazard faced by coral reefs; coral bleaching is doing untold damage to them, including to the Great Barrier Reef. Meanwhile, UNESCO is urging Australia to do more to protect the reef and preserve its status as a world heritage site.

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Scientists say that the potential melting of the ice sheets could mean a devastating rise in sea levels. Such rises could render some states such as Florida and California unlivable.

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Butterflies crossing the ocean? Apparently, the Painted Ladies can and have.

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The cute little Eared Grebe, a worldwide waterbird, is this week's American Bird Conservancy "Bird of the Week."

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A fatal fungus has devastated the world's amphibians but this fungus has a weakness - it can't tolerate heat. 

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Moose were introduced in Colorado in the 1970s and they have been very successful. Maybe too successful.

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Here's a look at the Housatonic River that runs through the Berkshire Mountains.

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And here's a look at the rhesus macaque monkeys that live on a small island off the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico.

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The Iberian lynx, with some help from conservationists, is making a comeback on the Iberian peninsula after almost becoming extinct there.

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As Afghans attempt to shift away from growing opium poppies to other field crops and fruit trees, climate change is making the transition difficult.

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Wild chimpanzees have been observed medicating themselves with wild plants.

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What finished off the last of the woolly mammoths? Scientists suspect a "freak event" was the culprit.

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The attempt to preserve a population of European wildcats in the U.K. has been buoyed by the recent birth of wildcat kittens in a national park there.

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What do six million antelope look like? There are pictures of that many animals recently migrating between national parks in South Sudan.

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Building a tunnel under Stonehenge does not seem like a very good idea to me but evidently that is going to happen. It has caused UNESCO officials to recommend putting the site on the list of world heritage sites that are in danger.

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A Bronze Age site has been discovered under a sports field in Cardiff.

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A Greater Flamingo is spending its summer in the Hamptons and is causing quite a stir among the human residents there.

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Pacific gray whales born in this century seem to be growing shorter than those of previous centuries. Suspicions are that it is related to the climate.

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Islands that were expected to be inundated by the rising seas of climate change surprisingly seem to be doing just fine.

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A new book details the subterranean microbial life that shapes our planet.

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The pandas are coming! The pandas are coming! The San Diego Zoo will soon be receiving two giant pandas from China, the first to enter this country in over two decades.