This week in birds

This week in birds - #376

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

The resident Northern Mockingbird keeps a keen eye on his domain.

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The controversial Keystone pipeline has leaked 383,000 gallons of oil in North Dakota, coating an estimated half-acre of wetland. The spill began on Tuesday night and has now reportedly been contained. Emergency crews are working to clean up the oil which would fill about half of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

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The EPA disbanded the group of scientists that made up its Clean Air Science Panel, but the scientists kept working in spite of that and they have now issued a report on their findings. They have discovered that particle pollution regulations are not adequately protecting public health and there are other worrying trends at the EPA.

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One idea to help with preventing/fighting California's wildfires and energy blackouts is to decentralize energy sources and utilize more solar panels and microgrids.

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Russian scientists are currently tracking thirteen Steppe Eagles via transmitters attached to the birds. The birds breed in Russia and Kazakhstan but winter in South Asia. One of the birds recently passed into Iran and its transmitter sent hundreds of backlogged text messages, draining the researchers' phone credit for the project!

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Murray Energy Corporation has become the eighth coal company to file for bankruptcy this year. The bankruptcies are a sign that market forces are pushing the companies out of business, as more and more coal-fired power plants close and utilities turn to renewable sources for their energy.

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California Condors have reached a major milestone in their recovery. With the fledging of this year's chicks, there are now more than 100 of the big birds in Big Sur, California.

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Wildfires have been a problem in Australia, too. Conservationists fear that hundreds of koalas may have perished in fires that razed prime habitat on the country's east coast.

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Rising sea levels could erase some of the world's great coastal cities by 2050 and could displace as many as 150 million people, according to the authors of a paper on the subject that was published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

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Not all invasive species are necessarily detrimental to the environment. In Florida, overrun by so many harmful non-native species, the feral parrots that make their homes there seem to coexist with native birds without competition or interference.

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New research points to Botswana as the ancestral home of modern humans; however, not all scientists agree with the conclusions of the researchers. The theory is based on DNA analysis and the dissenting scientists counsel caution about using modern genetic distributions to infer exactly where ancestral populations were living 200,000 years ago.

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Chimney Swifts are declining, possibly in part because of the absence of open chimneys where they can nest. Concerned conservationists are encouraging the use of fake wooden chimneys that would provide nesting places and migration motels for the birds, and many people across the country are responding by putting the structures in their yards.

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An unusually rich trove of early mammalian fossils has been found in Colorado. The great variety of the fossils is giving clues as to how tiny mammals from the age of dinosaurs evolved into larger creatures once the dinosaurs were gone.

Update: Currently playing on PBS's great Nova series is a documentary about this discovery. It is fascinating. Here's a link.

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After the destruction of Hurricane Dorian, a birding group touring Grand Bahama has found many fewer birds than were present there before.

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Texas is home to four quail species: Northern Bobwhite, Gambel's, Scaled, and Montezuma. All of them are declining possibly due to a combination of causes including drought, land-use changes, land fragmentation, habitat loss, human-wildlife interface issues, invasive species, insecticides, diseases, and parasites.

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"Bug Eric" reports on his survey of one house in one night in Door County, Wisconsin, during which he found seventeen spider species! Remember: Spiders are our friends. Let them live.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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