The Nature of Things

  A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is one that most of us have not seen and perhaps will never see. It is the largest of North America's auklet species, the Rhinoceros Auklet . It is a seabird that nests in burrows or deep crevices on rocky islands and cliffs and winters at sea and is decreasing in numbers. *~*~*~* Electricity generated by solar power is increasing across the country. Moreover, solar farms not only produce power, in many cases they produce habitats for pollinators and other wildlife . *~*~*~* Expeditions to the sunken RMS Titanic are still making discoveries . *~*~*~* More proof that everything is connected: New research has linked crashing bat populations and infant mortality . *~*~*~* Chimpanzees and other apes, just like humans, use meaningful gestures to help communicate and make their point.   *~*~*~* Flash floods can happen even in deserts. *~*~*~* According to a report in

It's always been one of my favorites of Robert Frost's poems since I first discovered it in high school. Maybe it's because I, too, was once a "swinger of birches."    Birches by Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods