This week in birds - #610

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

Dark-eyed Junco photographed at the Chihuahua Nature Center in Alpine, Texas a few years ago. I haven't seen one here yet this autumn but they should be arriving soon.

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(Note to readers: If you are unable to access any of the links I've provided, I suggest you do a search on the subject and connect to a link to which you do have access.) 

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The Leonid meteor shower will be at its peak this weekend. The light of a near-full Supermoon, the Beaver Moon, may interfere with viewers on Earth being able to see it. 

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Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are on track to set a new record this year.

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A group of leading climate policy experts says that future climate summits should only be held in countries that show support for climate action.

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But do those summits actually have any effect? A new report indicates that a major climate goal is farther out of reach than ever.

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The president-elect of this country has selected the governor of North Dakota, a man whose ties to the fossil fuel industry run deep, to be the Secretary of the Interior. Environmental groups are appalled.

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Moreover, a former Republican representative from New York has been named to be director of the Environmental Protection Agency, but, based on the man's record, it seems quite unlikely that he's being asked to "protect" the environment. Indeed the plan seems to be to gut climate rules.

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This country is in a drought and it would take a major rainfall to reverse the conditions.

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Retired National Institute of Health research chimpanzees will be moved to a sanctuary in Louisiana. And in more retired chimpanzee news, animals that had been featured in films, music videos, and commercials are learning to live among their own kind at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

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The universe is expanding but to what ultimate end? Cosmologists want to know.

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And back here on Earth, 2024 is set to be the hottest year on record.

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Plankton, the backbone of the oceanic ecosystem, are struggling to survive in Earth's warming seas.

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The right-wing president of Argentina is considering pulling his country out of the Paris climate agreement.

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The wary and elusive LeConte's Sparrow is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It is a bird of wet prairies and grasslands in Canada and upper midwestern states and migrates short distances to (mostly) the south-central United States for winter.

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The Mekong giant salmon carp had been feared to be extinct since no one had seen it since 2005, but, happily, it turns out that rumors of its extinction were premature.

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This is Hutan, a 17-year-old siamang gibbon housed at ZooTampa in Florida and she is holding her baby who was born on October 27. Siamang gibbons are endangered and any new baby is cause for celebration.

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And this Emperor Penguin has gone where (apparently) no Emperor had gone before. It turned up on a beach near the coastal town of Denmark, Australia, more than 2000 miles form its normal habitat.

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Hurricane Helene devastated forests in North Carolina.

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You might not expect to find bees and their keepers in New York City but you would be wrong. Apparently they live quite happily among the high-rises there.

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Did Voyager 2 witness an unusual solar event as it zipped past Uranus forty years ago?

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Why is Australia still permitting logging in parks that are meant to become a koala preserve? 

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A creature from the deep ocean has finally been identified twenty-five years after its discovery as a sea slug.

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Are you in need of a "Panic Abatement Plan" after the recent election? Margaret Renkl has advice.