This week in birds - #620

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

This imposing pair is Jackie and Shadow, Bald Eagles who are nesting in the Big Bear Valley of California and who have a devoted following (including me) on Facebook. They are presently incubating three eggs. They've not had the greatest of success in past years. Fingers crossed that this year turns out more happily for them.

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The senate has confirmed as the new director of the Environmental Protection Agency former congressman Lee Zeldin, a man with no creditable environmental experience.

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And on that note, welcome to the Year of the Snake. We can at least hope that it is a propitious one.

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How do birds cope with the cold weather of winter?

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The new administration in Washington has thrown spending on addressing climate change into chaos. It is likely that chaos will continue for the next four years.

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A study has found that genetic diversity of plant and animal species is declining globally.

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The new president's attempt to get federal workers to resign seems to be having the opposite effect.

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Meanwhile, the Doomsday Clock ticks ever closer to midnight.

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The latest report on the status of Monarch butterflies does not hold much good news.

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It should not surprise us to learn that our cousins, the chimpanzees, develop hand gestures as a way to communicate with each other.

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Sadly, tiger poaching continues to be a problem in Malaysia.

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An ocean heatwave likely is responsible for killing thousands of fish off the western Australia coast.

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The opposite problem, cold water, is causing suffering among green sea turtles off Florida's Atlantic coast. Over 1,000 have been rescued.

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In Madagascar, floods ravaged a sanctuary for critically endangered tortoises.

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It'll always be the Gulf of Mexico for me.

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Have you heard about the tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas? It's the largest on record in U.S. history.

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Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is spewing lava again.

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The northeastern coast of the country has been overrun by invasive crabs from Europe and Asia. Residents are trying to eat their way out of the problem.

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Seventy-six million years ago, a young pterosaur apparently fell prey to a crocodile.

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This beautiful creature is the Florida Scrub-jay and it is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It lives in the scrubby sandy oak woodlands and ancient dunes in coastal and central areas of the state.

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And this is another Florida resident, the rainbow snake, which has just been seen in the wild for the first time in fifty years.

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A baby shark has been born in a Louisiana aquarium tank that contains only female sharks and marine experts are flummoxed for an explanation. 

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Saguaros are beset by a number of problems including climate change, drought, and fires, and all are made worse by human activities.

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Danish scientists are excited about the discovery of some 66-million-year-old fossilized vomit!

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Will this planned dam on the Congo River ever be built?

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This is the Mount Lyell shrew, an elusive resident of the eastern Sierra Mountains that has only recently been photographed for the first time.

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Sandeels are a treasured delicacy of Puffins and now a courtroom battle looms between the U.K. and the E.U. over the tiny fish.

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Toxic PFAS from a chemical plant are polluting the Ohio River in West Virginia where the plant is located.

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Astronomers are keeping an eye on an asteroid that has a slight possibility of hitting Earth in 2032.

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A pangolin species that is potentially separate from species previously known has been identified in the Indo-Burma region. 

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The last of the rhesus monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility has been recaptured after having been lured by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

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I think we know that the current resident of the White House will use whatever tools he can find to circumvent the Endangered Species Act. 

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The National Zoo's panda cam is back on line and airing footage of the zoo's newest panda pair.

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Resistance is necessary, writes Anne Lamott, and we must practice it in whatever ways are available to us.

Poetry Sunday: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Here's a reminder that the Ozymandiases of this world never last. In the end, time razes their vaunted power and the lone and level sands stretch around all that is left of the wreck.

 

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

This week in birds - #619

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

I haven't seen American Goldfinches at my bird feeders this winter until this week, but suddenly there they are, in the feeders and on the ground under the feeders, scarfing down the seeds on offer.

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And on the subject of feeders, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has issued a bird flu warning that encourages residents to take down bird feeders and birdbaths. The idea is to decrease the number of places where birds gather, facilitating the spread of viruses.

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The new administration in Washington is no friend to endangered ocean and coastal animals. And one of the first acts of the administration was to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

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How does implementation of the Endangered Species Act affect property values? Generally in a more positive way than you might imagine. 

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This picture of a baby chameleon clinging to a flower bud was one of the winners in the "Wiki Loves Earth 2024" photo contest.

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Critical CO2 stores that have been sequestered in the Arctic's vast carbon sink are now being emitted into the atmosphere, contributing further to global warming.

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Australia's Great Barrier Reef has been hit by catastrophic coral bleaching.

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Elephants are intelligent and majestic creatures but they cannot pursue their release from captivity through court action nor can humans on their behalf, according to a decision by Colorado's highest court.

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Thirty-five new species from the Caribbean Islands have recently been described. Among them is the "James Bond" lizard.

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Wearing a typically disgruntled expression is this Buff-bellied Hummingbird, a resident of the Gulf Coast of the United States and Mexico and further south into Belize and Guatemala. Perhaps he doesn't appreciate the honor of being the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week!

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What purpose do the tails of giant stingrays serve? It turns out to be something different than expected.

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A recently released study found that high fertilizer use affects pollinators, cutting their numbers by as much as half. 

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Prairie rattlesnakes have evolved a method of collecting rainwater in their dry environment. Nature truly is amazing!

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It appears that spotted hyenas are returning to Egypt after an absence of 5,000 years. 

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Surprisingly, some corals are able to walk.

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Giving hellbenders endangered species status could help to protect and restore their environment.

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With a new administration in Washington that will not do much, if anything, to address climate change and help and protect vulnerable species, Margaret Renkl argues that it will be up to the rest of us to do what we can.

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Finally, here are some pictures of the week in wildlife.

Poetry Sunday: Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams

Winter has finally arrived in southeast Texas. We're actually expected to have some below freezing temperatures over the next few days. And the wise trees that have dropped their leaves will stand sleeping through it all.

Winter Trees

by William Carlos Williams 

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

This week in birds - #618

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

This fantastically colored creature is the very aptly named Shining Sunbeam, also called the Copper-winged Hummingbird, a large, conspicuous hummingbird whose habitat includes both slopes of the Andes, from Colombia south through Ecuador and Peru. Its population is believed to be stable. 

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In his last days in office, the current president is doing what he can to protect climate funding from the depredations of the incoming president.

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The deadly Los Angeles wildfires affect wildlife as well as people. Here are some ways to help them.

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"Guerrilla rewilding" is now a thing and is apparently responsible for the recent release of four lynx in the Scottish Highlands. All have now been safely recaptured.

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                                   This little cutie is the Danish-Swedish farm dog.

We are not big football fans in my family (sacrilege I know) but we always look forward to Super Bowl Sunday. No, not for the game but for the American Kennel Club dog show that is broadcast that day. This year, we may see a new breed of dog that has just been recognized by the AKC. It's the Danish-Swedish farm dog.

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Melting ice in Wyoming has led to the discovery of a 5,900-year-old forest of whitebark pine trees.

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And speaking of cuties, here is the little Northern Saw-whet Owl, a master of hiding.

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On the other end of the size scale from the Saw-whet Owl is the giant Steller's Sea Eagle. It's not a native North American bird species but one has been spotted at various places across the continent in recent years and has lately been sighted at an eastern Canada park.

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Tattoos have become very popular in American culture in recent years but they are definitely nothing new; the Chancay people who lived on the Peruvian coast around 900 to 1500 C.E. also adorned themselves with sometimes quite intricate tattoos.

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Climate change is happening over the long term but is affecting daily weather as well and has recently contributed to deadly floods around the Mediterranean Sea.

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The Environmental Protection Agency has warned that "forever chemicals" are present in sewage sludge that is used as fertilizer and they could pose risks to human health. 

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This story reminded me of one of my all-time favorite television series,  Detectorists: A hoard of eleventh century silver coins has been discovered in England. 

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Here are some quite amazing images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.

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A 4,100-year-old burial chamber of a physician who treated ancient Egyptian kings has been discovered and excavated by archaeologists.

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Unsurprisingly, the president-elect's choice for Energy Department Secretary rejects the idea that climate change is contributing to more frequent and severe wildfires.

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And in other news of the incoming administration, the pick for secretary of the Health and Human Services Department claims that we are being poisoned by seed oils.

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Migrating bats use storm fronts to help them on their way.

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The news of the world can be unrelentingly depressing but Dana Milbank assures us that spring will come again.

Poetry Sunday: The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost

Since I first became acquainted with Robert Frost's poetry in high school, I've often taken comfort in it over the years. Whenever the world seems particularly fractious, as it has recently, I turn again to many of his poems that I love. There are two of Frost's in particular that are meaningful for me - "Birches" and "The Tuft of Flowers." Today, "The Tuft of Flowers" seems especially appropriate - a reminder that we are all in this together whether we work together or apart.

The Tuft of Flowers

by Robert Frost

I went to turn the grass once after one

Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

 

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen

Before I came to view the levelled scene.

 

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;

I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

 

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,

And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

 

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,

‘Whether they work together or apart.’

 

But as I said it, swift there passed me by

On noiseless wing a ‘wildered butterfly,

 

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night

Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

 

And once I marked his flight go round and round,

As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

 

And then he flew as far as eye could see,

And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

 

I thought of questions that have no reply,

And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

 

But he turned first, and led my eye to look

At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

 

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared

Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

 

I left my place to know them by their name,

Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

 

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,

By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

 

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.

But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

 

The butterfly and I had lit upon,

Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

 

That made me hear the wakening birds around,

And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

 

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;

So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

 

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,

And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

 

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech

With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

 

‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,

‘Whether they work together or apart.’

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January 16 -

I just noted that this was my number 4,000 post on this blog  - a milestone of sorts. Thank you for reading!