This week in birds - #607

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

It's butterfly season in my backyard. The cohort is led by Cloudless Sulphurs like this one feasting on one of my Hamelia patens shrubs. These shrubs with their tubular blossoms are great favorites with butterflies and with the hummingbirds that are now passing through. In past years, there would be many Monarch butterflies among the cohort. Not this year. So far this October I've not seen a single Monarch.

*~*~*~*

South America is experiencing a historic drought and the Amazon is drying up.

*~*~*~*

Some of the world's poorest nations are very rich in Nature. They need help protecting it. As the COP 16 conference meets in Colombia, delegates will push to ensure that protection. That need is urgent because the world's nations are lagging behind on their expressed goals.

*~*~*~*

New discoveries lead paleontologists to speculate that the origin of dinosaurs dates back much further than had been believed.

*~*~*~*

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a very wild place but it needs protection to stay that way.

*~*~*~*

What species of birds are most likely to collide with windows during their migration and what can you do to help prevent it?

*~*~*~*

Mysterious white blobs have been washing up on Newfoundland's shores and their origin is still unknown.

*~*~*~*

Here's an article from a few months back about the connection between birds and insects. What's good for one is often good for the other.

*~*~*~*

If you want to rent a panda, China demands five things from you.

*~*~*~*

Pawpaws, the native American fruit, may be a popular fruit of the future in a world that is heating up.

*~*~*~*

Archaeologists say that new finds in the ancient city of Petra have been over-hyped.

*~*~*~*

The export of millions of critically endangered eels from the United Kingdom to Russia is being criticized as "bonkers" by some scientists and conservationists.

*~*~*~*

If you decorate for Halloween, make sure those decorations are bird-friendly.

*~*~*~*


This is the Common Poorwill, a resident of several western states and northern Mexico. It is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

*~*~*~*

Why would bumblebee queens choose to hibernate in soil that is full of pesticides and poisons? It's a mystery and the bumblebees aren't telling.

*~*~*~*

England is allowing some of its land to return to salt marshes in a radical approach to control flooding.

*~*~*~*

Here's an article from the past that explores how scientists track birds in migration.

*~*~*~*

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a system of ocean currents that delivers heat to the northern Atlantic. Experts warn that it is in danger of breaking down.

*~*~*~*

The war in Ukraine is a threat to its unique red seaweed fields.

*~*~*~*

How do you teach rescued jaguars to be jaguars so that they can be returned to the wild?

*~*~*~*

Giant salmon carp, known as the "Mekong Ghost," had been feared to be extinct but they've now been rediscovered in Cambodia. 

*~*~*~*

What will happen to Nature in Ukraine once the war there is over? Will it be allowed to revive? 

*~*~*~*

Recent discoveries suggest that the ancient Silk Road trade routes were more complex than had previously been believed.

*~*~*~*

An adventurous dog climbed to the top of the Khafre Pyramid in Egypt and became an internet star! 

Comments

  1. So many interesting links here - thank you. Some are not easy to follow as they seek subscriptions.
    I found the education to reintroduce animals to the wild fascinating - even more so, that some of them are creatures I would never have considered, like frogs and axolotls.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I realize that some of the links that I share do solicit subscriptions but I find it easy enough to just click past that and get to the information I want.

      Delete
  2. Good morning, Dorothy. Thank you for the roundup. There is much here to ponder and further research to do. I really appreciate the time you take each week to put this synopsis together for us. One comment stands out, “the world’s nations are lagging behind.” No kidding. In Canada, we have never met a single commitment we have made - ever! To our eternal shame we laud and we fawn, and become really good at moralizing and uttering soaring rhetoric, yet we do very little. The world’s ecosystems are collapsing around us, yet we seem unable to summon the will to tackle the problem in any meaningful way. And in the US you have a candidate for president who wants to overthrow even the meagre safeguards now in place, and “Drill baby drill.” We have gone mad! All the best - David

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's a lot there to depress us; nevertheless, we fight on. Mother Nature demands it.

      Delete
  3. I have been doing the Pollinator Bioblitz this week and last week, and I have only seen one Monarch, and that was at the Houston Botanic Gardens. I worry about the butterflies and bees and other pollinators.

    Thank you for linking to the article about bird collisions with windows. That is going to be a new subject of study this year for Project Feeder Watch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The situation with the Monarchs is very concerning indeed. So we scatter milkweed plants around our gardens and hope for the best.

      Delete
  4. Gorgeous photo up top of the butterfly. My husband liked the book Flight Paths by Rebecca Heisman which I gave him last Christmas. I'm glad you link to the article by Heisman about tracking bird migration. Very interesting!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

The Investigator by John Sandford: A review

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman