This week in birds - #629

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

This is a rather plain bird with a beautiful song. It is the Veery, a member of the thrush family. It passes through Texas on migration and moves on to breed primarily along the border between Canada and the United States, although it can be found breeding all the way south to Georgia. Like many species, it is threatened by forest loss and fragmentation.

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Something bad is happening along the southern California coast as hundreds of sick or dead sea mammals wash up on its shores. There has also been erratic behavior, including attacks on humans. Sea mammal specialists suspect toxic algae poisoning of being the cause.

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And in the human world, toxicity of another kind has led the nation's top vaccine scientist to resign his position just as we are facing a potential measles epidemic that would have been totally preventable by vaccine.

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And, confirming the adage that it never rains but it pours, we may also be looking at a return of acid rain because of government rollbacks of pollution protections. 

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But heaven forbid we should be so "woke" as to care about the environment!

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We know a bit about the human toll of the war in Ukraine but the toll on the environment has been equally or more devastating.

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In 2021, the United Kingdom passed a law meant to protect against deforestation, but then it delayed implementation of the law with predictable results.

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And deforestation does not affect only forests. It threatens the life forms that live among and depend on those trees, even including the fungi that live there.

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Palm trees are an iconic part of the southern California scene even though they are not native there, but they are also an incredible source of fuel for the wildfires that plague the area. And the world's oldest tree, the 5,000-year-old bristlecone pine called "Methusaleh" is threatened by those fires.

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If you have a garden, you can help support the butterfly populations where you live by cultivating the plants they need - e.g., milkweed for Monarchs.  

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This is the time of year when vast fields of poppies can be expected to bloom in southern California, but not this year. An unusually dry winter has left those fields brown.

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Nature has much to tell us if we only listen. Even the fish have their story.

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Rumors of its demise turned out to be exaggerated. Here's how this mollusk came back from the brink with a little help from its friends.

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Congress approved billions of dollars to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells, but now the program has been halted by the current administration in Washington.

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Hope, that "thing with feathers" in Emily Dickinson's words, springs eternal, it is said, and on a beautiful vernal day it is almost possible to believe that, writes Anne Lamott. 

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Bee-hunting dogs? They do, in fact exist.

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And speaking of dogs, on Kangaroo Island, Australia, a miniature dachshund named Valerie has been living on her own for over a year after escaping from her pen.

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Dana Milbank muses about how all those "aliens" at the National Zoo might be deported as the administration seeks to stamp out DEI.

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I love this story: A family visiting Washington was just trying to take a picture of its two children among the cherry blossoms with the Washington Monument in the background when the scene got photobombed by someone famous.