This week in birds - #570

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

Not a bird but a flier of a different kind. In past years, Monarch butterflies like this one I photographed in my backyard five years ago would be plentiful in that backyard in late October and November as they passed through on the way to their winter in Mexico. This year, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Monarchs I've seen. Likewise their cousins, the Queens. Their absence is very disturbing. 

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Thirty-five years ago scientist James Hansen warned us about the warming of our planet. Now he's warning us again. Maybe we should listen this time. 

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Hansen would definitely warn us about the folly of failing to protect our precious wetlands.

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Two new books display the amazing artistry of birders in earlier centuries.

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In the waters off the Galapagos Islands, two previously unknown coral reefs have been discovered.

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In a changing climate, it may benefit the California redwoods to move. Some humans are helping to do just that. 

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In New Zealand, the Maori community is already feeling the adverse effects of climate change.

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Here's a report of birds seen in autumn in the Yolo Bypass in California's Sacramento Valley.

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It takes no great powers of observation to note that plants follow the sun in its course through our skies each day, but how exactly do they do it?

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The American Ornithological Society has announced that it will be changing the names of North American birds that have honored slavers and racists and giving them names that will instead describe their appearance or other characteristics. 

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This little cutie is the Cundinamarca Antipitta of the highland cloud forests of South America and it is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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A car crash caused by a tarantula crossing the road? Only in California!

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Two American Flamingos blown off course by Hurricane Idalia and ending up in Chincoteague, Virginia, have been causing quite a stir among birders in the area and also out of the area as they travel there to get a glimpse of them.

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Twenty-one species were recently declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the news barely got a mention in the national press.

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Here are some amazing pictures from The Guardian's "The week in wildlife."

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The Chumash people of California are working to preserve the coastline there that is an integral part of their tribal culture.

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Here are some beautiful pictures of Barn Swallows in flight.

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The 500-year-old mummy of an Incan girl that was discovered in 1995 now has a face that has been created by researchers.

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There's a new theory that dust stirred up by the impact of the asteroid that hit Earth over 66 million years ago may have ultimately led to the doom of dinosaurs. (Except for those winged dinosaurs we call birds, of course.)

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The annual curse of choking pollution of the air has returned to New Delhi.

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A Barred Owl that got trapped in a sculpture at the National Gallery of Art and Sculpture Garden has been rehabbed and released.

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Far out in space, a NASA spacecraft has discovered an asteroid that is orbited by its own tiny "moon."

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A Wild Turkey continues to evade capture and cause traffic problems in West Orange, New Jersey.

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A writer details the adventure of raising an orphaned owl and what he learned from it.

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And then there is the story of the injured American Kestrel that lost the ability to fly and gained a new career as an artist.

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We used to see stories every year of cats running onto baseball fields during games. (I am quite sure the animals didn't do it of their own accord.) But now comes a story of an opossum that ran onto the field during a football game and didn't want to leave.