This week in birds - #674

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Yellow-winged Blackbird. It is a bird that is not found in North America but is found in wetlands throughout much of South America in habitats similar to our own beloved Red-winged Blackbird. Happily, its population appears to be stable and its status is not presently of concern.

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The new Environmental Protection Agency administrator believes his job is about supporting industry and exporting fossil fuels rather than protecting the environment.

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The Florida Scrub Jay is classified as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. Now a lawsuit there could cause their status to deteriorate further.

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The defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary's recent election is potentially very good news for the country's environment. 

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Greater Sage Grouse males are attempting to lure mates near the Jackson Hole Airport where a number of the birds have been struck and killed. Conservationists are deploying dancing animatronic birds to try to entice  them away.

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The nutria is an invasive species that is causing havoc in California and conservationists are working hard to try to eradicate it from the state. 

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How did the Grand Canyon form? Some new research may provide clues.

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This tiny creature is a warty frogfish named Domino and it is believed to be the first of its kind to be born and raised in captivity.

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In March, renewable energy provided more power to the United States than natural gas and that is a first for the country.

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Studying civil war between rival chimpanzee groups in Uganda may provide some clues for scientists about the roots of warfare in the human species.

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Becoming an expert birder can have many benefits and it turns out that one of them may be to reshape the brain and protect it from aging. 

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The Kakapo is an endangered New Zealand bird on the brink of extinction, but the species is having a very good breeding season that has produced 95 living chicks so far.

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The glowing lures of the female anglerfish serve the dual purpose of attracting mates and helping them to snag meals.

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As climate change disrupts their traditional prey, more gray whales are entering San Francisco Bay in search of food and, unfortunately, many of them die there. 

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Insects are key to a healthy environment. These are some simple actions we can take to help them. 

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Despite pressure to end commercial whaling, Norway has reopened its annual whale hunt.

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It turns out that exposure to heat and air pollution can increase the risk of suicide.

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Another harmful effect of climate change is to alter the way our planet smells.

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An entomologist has discovered a relationship between two ant species in which one provides a "carwash" service to the other!

Poetry Sunday: Firefly by Jacqueline Woodson

As a child in the country - no television to distract me in those days - one of my favorite activities on a late summer evening was chasing fireflies, or lightning bugs as we called them then. I liked to catch them in a jar to make my own special flashlight. (My mother always made me let them go, of course. ) 

There were plenty of fireflies in those days, enough to light up those summer evenings. Not so many these days. Watching them twinkle in the dusk as the sun went down is a fond memory that will, I hope and wish, always be with me. "Firefly wishes always come true."

Firefly

by Jacqueline Woodson

It's almost May
and yesterday

I saw a firefly.

You don't see

them a lot

in the city.

Sometimes

in the park

in the near dark

one comes out

you'll hear

a little kid shout

Lightning bug! Firefly!

It's almost May

and yesterday

I caught a firefly in my hand.

First firefly I

seen in a 

long, long time.

Make a wish,

Miss Edna said.

Make a good one.

Firefly wishes always come true.

This week in birds - #673

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

The Eastern Warbling Vireo is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It is a rather drab bird and tends to stay high up in trees which often makes it difficult to spot, but it can be found during spring and summer over much of eastern North America. Its population is in good shape overall and it does not appear to be in any immediate risk; however it is sometimes a victim of the Brown-headed Cowbird's brood parasitism.

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Scientists have found a surprising trove of fossils in a Texas cave.

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In case you haven't already seen them, here are some of the amazing photos sent back by from the Artemis 2 mission.

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"Overnight successes" in conservation definitely do not happen overnight.

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Five missing bird species that had been thought to have been lost were rediscovered in 2025.

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More bad news for the Gulf of Mexico: The Trump administration will exempt oil and gas drilling from measures meant to protect endangered whales and other imperiled species.

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The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced this week that Emperor Penguins, the largest of the penguins, have been added to the endangered list.

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Underneath California's Salton Sea sits a treasure trove of lithium, making it the "Saudi Arabia of lithium."

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Cascade red foxes are very reclusive and difficult to photograph but one photographer managed to overcome those problems.

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What is a shark? New genetic analysis is giving us a better understanding of the answer to that question.

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And we are still learning more about the Neanderthals, including the fact that they did indeed hunt big game.

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More crops are grown for fuel and livestock feed than are grown for human food.

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Can we help control global warming by stashing carbon dioxide in the sea?

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In New England, fishermen are contributing to science as they ply their trade.

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In Australia, rock art gives clues that Tasmanian tigers may have survived on the mainland for longer than previously thought.

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A new study has found that sharks in the Bahamas test positive for drugs including cocaine and painkillers.

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The North American butternut tree is struggling to survive but new research is giving it a second chance.

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Octopus sex can be a very weird thing, indeed.

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In war-torn Ukraine recently, people gathered to watch the release of hundreds of rescued bats.

Cats

Cats have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Indeed my very earliest memories involve my interactions with members of the family Felis catus. My most recent memories do as well. Even as I sit at my desk, there are reminders. 

On the wall by my desk hangs this picture. This is Nicholas. Nicky. My late and much loved companion for many - but far too few - years. He's been gone now for more years than he lived, but he's still with me. As long as my heart beats he will be a part of it.

And this is Beau, seen here dozing on the windowsill in my office. It was a favorite spot of his. We lost him last year to cancer. I grieve still.

We got Beau and his sister Bella some months after Nicky's death. I wasn't sure I was ready for another cat when our younger daughter and her friend found them, abandoned, on a country road. They needed a home so how could I say no?

                                       

Here they are, snuggled together on my bed. Yes, there are actually two cats there!

They are a bit more defined here - Bella on the left, Beau on the right.

And now only Bella remains. Here she is, in her younger days, atop the bookcases in the library. It was her favorite spot back then. I think she just loved looking down on us. She's fifteen years old now and doesn't aspire to such heights anymore. These days she enjoys sleeping in the sun from that same window where her brother used to doze.

Before Beau and Bella, there were Oscar and Zelda - Oscar named for Oscar Wilde and Zelda for Zelda Fitzgerald. Wonderful animals!

These cats and so many others before (not to mention various dogs, birds, rabbits, chickens, fish, and even one rat!) have been an integral part of my life and have taught me to appreciate all the many ways that Nature has of expressing consciousness and that all those ways have value and things to teach us. Inasmuch as I have a philosophy of life, it is just that. It is not a bad guiding philosophy I think. And it is all thanks to Nicky and all those other cats and various animals.

Poetry Sunday: Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

This poem by Langston Hughes, the Black American writer, was first published almost a hundred years ago in 1935 but it seems as though it could have been written yesterday. Perhaps someday we will heed his words...

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

 

(America never was America to me.)

 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

 

(It never was America to me.)

 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

 

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

 

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

 

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

 

The free?

 

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

 

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

 

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!