This week in birds - #605

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

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds continue passing through in migration, but I've still only seen immatures and females like this one - no adult males yet. 

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Do you live in a "fun state"? (I note that Texas is #7 on the list.)

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Wildlife populations are collapsing in many areas. 

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That collapse may be exacerbated by the fact that Earth's vital signs have reached record extremes.

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Meanwhile, in the Sahara Desert, a rare deluge of rain has fallen. 

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Back in this country, the Supreme Court has refused to block new Biden administration efforts to address climate change and air pollution.

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A UN biodiversity summit in Colombia will assess the progress made on countries' promises to help save the developing world's ecosystems.

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The Northern Lights have put on quite a show this week.

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The highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains had been named after a Confederate general but will now be rechristened to reflect the name that it was previously called by the Cherokee. 

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And here is a story about the Japanese naturalist who helped to bring about the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

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Kleptoparasitism as practiced by "pirate seabirds" might be a vector for spreading avian flu.

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One hundred bison from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park have been successfully relocated to South Dakota in an effort to reduce the overpopulation of the animals at the park.

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This little cutie is the Rock Wren, a bird of arid, rocky places and it is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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A new study suggests that different species of birds deliberately team up during migration as they make their death-defying trips.

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Old subway cars are being added to an artificial reef off the coast of Georgia to create more wildlife habitat.

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In South Africa, human actions have pushed together an unlikely combination of predator and prey - the caracal and Cape Cormorants and African Penguins.

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Protecting Iceland's Puffin chicks is the business of the "Puffling Patrol."

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In a step toward rewilding parts of Great Britain, a herd of tauros (cattle-like animals) is to be released into the Scottish Highlands. It is an effort to recreate the ecological role of the extinct aurochs.

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This is the Hoiho, a rare yellow-eyed penguin native to New Zealand and it is that country's Bird of the Year.

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The world's rivers are drying up at the fastest rate in thirty years.

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Although 140 countries pledged three years ago to halt deforestation by the end of the decade, the destruction of the world's forests actually increased in 2023.

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Avian flu is threatening the recovery of the Bald Eagle from its brink of near extinction.

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Salmon numbers in England and Wales were the lowest on record in 2023.

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But in the Klamath River in California and Oregon, salmon are now swimming freely after the removal of a dam.