This week in birds

This week in birds - #428

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

I freely admit that my sparrow identification skills are poor. I'm not 100% sure of this bird's identity so I won't label it. (Maybe you can help me out?) I photographed it in winter at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Coast a few years and it has languished unidentified in my files. Here's another view:

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President-elect Biden has named John Kerry, one of the architects of the Paris climate accord, as his special presidential envoy on climate change and has indicated that it will be a cabinet-level position. Moreover, Biden has said that he intends that the fight against climate change will be an integral part of each of the executive branch agencies' mission in his administration.

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Meanwhile, the current administration continues attempting to weaken rules regarding clean water and air, and career civil servants in the Environmental Protection Agency are stalling and delaying the actions wherever they can.

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General Motors which had gone along with the current administration's effort to strip California of its ability to set stricter fuel economy laws has dropped its support of that idea and has said it will cooperate with the incoming administration.

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Pelicans, plovers, and a host of other coastal nesting birds in North Carolina have had a very successful breeding season this year. Much of that is due to the pandemic that kept humans away from their nesting areas.

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Juan Fernández Archipelago National Park in Chile is home to a wealth of species found nowhere else on Earth, where the proportion of endemic plants surpasses even the more celebrated Galápagos Islands. But the continued survival of these endemic species depends upon invasive species being eradicated.

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Mauritius is engaged in what seems to be an entirely wrong-headed culling of an endangered fruit bat that exists nowhere else on Earth. The action is being taken at the behest of farmers and the public seeking to protect the fruit industry, but the culprits that despoil the fruit are more likely birds than bats.

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Concerns about climate change are having a deleterious effect on the world's birthrate. People worried about the climate crisis are deciding not to have children because of fears that their offspring would have to struggle through a climate apocalypse, according to the first academic study of the issue.

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Blackburnian Warbler image by Ian Davies.

A new study estimates that up to 1.5 billion birds like this Blackburnian Warbler have been saved during the last 40 years in the United States thanks to the enactment of the Clean Air Act which helped to clean out the pollution of the air.

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Do animals actually use those wildlife corridors that are constructed to help them avoid highways? Well, yes they do. Trail camera footage from Utah proves it.

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The Army Corps of Engineers has denied a permit for Pebble Mine in Alaska, which would have been one of the world's largest gold and copper mines right in the middle of the pristine tundra. Regulators found it to be "contrary to the public interest."

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The term "lame duck" is used to refer to an outgoing administration. An ornithologist explains how the term relates to actual ducks.

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A recent study has found that just 14% of the local plant genera support more than 90% of Lepidoptera diversity and thus serve as keystone plants throughout the United States.

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The current administration is rushing to try to transfer ownership to a mining company with ties to the destruction of an Aboriginal site in Australia of land in Arizona that is considered holy by local Native American tribes.

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Herring Gulls have a wide variety of plumage colorations which can make identifying them a challenge.

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A new study confirms that even small ships can cause serious injuries in collisions with North Atlantic right whales.

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If you watch many major league baseball games, you may have seen how gulls will frequently gather and start to swoop into the stadiums in coastal cities as the game nears the ninth inning. Clever birds are waiting to clean up the scraps of food. A study at the University of Bristol of Lesser Black-backed Gulls has confirmed that the gulls adapt their foraging behavior to human time schedules when beneficial and that this trait helps them survive in cities.

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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