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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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