This week in birds - #577

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

This little bird has recently been causing quite a stir in South Texas. It is a bird of South America called a Fan-tailed Warbler and birders are traveling from far and wide to enjoy its presence in this country.

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The West is in the middle of experiencing a two-decade-long drought. Trees tell the story.

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Even the Amazon rainforest is in drought.

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And yet animals and plants do adapt to the changing conditions, as the Meadow Brown butterfly shows.

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Archaeologists have discovered remnants of ancient cities in the Amazon.

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In Scotland, hotter and wetter weather has led to declines in some of their iconic bird populations.

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You might want to invest in some earplugs, especially if you live in the Midwest. We will have two broods of cicadas emerging this summer - a virtual cicadapocalypse!

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Ten more species could soon be added to the Endangered Species List. Among them is a big bumblebee.

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Here is the "Week in Wildlife" in pictures.

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Bird populations are declining across the continent.

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An avian flu panzootic (pandemic among animals) has struck hundreds of animal species and humans could be next.

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Many aquifers are declining, but data indicates that this trend could be reversed.

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How do birds see the world? Scientists claim they can now show us.

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Coyotes are making a comeback in Florida. They have also begun to recolonize some other areas from which they had been extirpated.

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There is a huge deep-sea coral reef off the Atlantic coast of the United States and now it has been mapped.

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This little beauty is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It is the exquisitely named Fiery Topaz, a resident of the treetops of the lowland Amazonian rainforest. Its status is not clear but the population is probably decreasing.

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Scientists are tracking the travels of a woolly mammoth by examining the layers of her tusks.

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A beluga whale escaped captivity and now he is a global celebrity.

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Why are craters appearing in Siberia's tundra? The mystery may have been solved.

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The Greenland ice cap is losing a lot of ice and that is cause for concern.

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Bats are extremely clever in the ways they have devised to stay safe from predators.

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It may look like trash to you but to a hermit crab, it can look like home.

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Everything in Nature is connected, including ants and lions.

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This Mongolian lake is pristine and yet some of its inhabitants are struggling.

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The Pacific Flyway, which stretches from Alaska to the tip of South America, is the migration route for millions of birds each year.

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Could IVF be the key to saving the endangered northern white rhino?

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Genomic research on blue whale carcasses has revealed that there is less inbreeding in the species than scientists would have expected. 

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Here are some amazing pictures from Nature, winners in a photography contest.

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Engraving on a 2,000-year-old knife in Denmark may be the oldest known example of runes. 

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A Canadian climate change denier has been arrested and charged with setting at least thirteen wildfires.

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Invasive fire ants are making their way through Australia. (I remember when they first made it to Texas several years ago and there was so much hype and scary headlines all over the place. We had their mounds in our yard for a while but I rarely ever see them anymore.) 

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And speaking of Texas, its "green grid" may get a test if the anticipated winter storm develops early next week.

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Wild agave, used in making mezcal, is getting harder to find.  

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She aspired to have the ugliest lawn. Do you think she succeeded?