This week in birds

This week in birds - #624

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

This dapper looking guy is the Black-headed Grosbeak, also called the Western Grosbeak and it is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It can be found throughout western North America in its preferred habitat of forests and forest edges. It sometimes hybridizes with the Rose-breasted Grosbeak where the two species' ranges overlap.

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The Environmental Protection Agency in its current iteration appears not to be mainly interested in protecting the environment.

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It isn't often that a previously unknown plant is discovered in one of our national parks, but that is what has just happened in Big Bend National Park.

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The Musk/Trump administration's mass firing of federal employees has hit hard at the agencies that manage and protect our national parks and lands. The Forest Service firings in particular have wreaked havoc on rural areas.

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The American chestnut tree has been virtually extirpated by blight but is there a chance that we could bring it back?

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The Guardian is inviting us to nominate our candidates for "Invertebrate of the Year."

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A "superpod" of some 2,000 dolphins has been creating a spectacle for viewing in Monterey Bay off California's coast.

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When I was a child, I had measles and was probably as sick as I have ever been in my life. Unfortunately, the disease, which is now perfectly preventable with vaccination, is once again raging in west Texas where at least one child has already died.

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A growing commercial trade in corals is exploiting an already threatened ecosystem.

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Replanting seagrass meadows is helping fish, protecting coastlines, and absorbing climate-heating carbon dioxide.

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In Lake Superior, lake trout have rebounded following overfishing in the last century, largely thanks to a lamprey removal program.

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Under this malign administration, the USDA has deleted vital climate information from its website. After all, why would farmers need to know about climate/weather? The farmers are suing.

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In Denmark, a woodhenge, similar to the United Kingdom's Stonehenge, has been uncovered. It would seem to support the theory that the belief system behind the henges was widespread.

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This is a Plains-wanderer, a bird of the grasslands of Australia. Their coloration helps hide them from predators but also makes it difficult for researchers to find them.

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A twenty-year study has found that the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s has helped the entire ecosystem to thrive.

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Quilting was not only a tradition among Black women of the South; my mother and all my aunts on both sides of the family were quilters. I grew up sleeping under those quilts and I still have several of them which I treasure.

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No-till farming is apparently having a rebirth in the present century. And that is probably a good thing for the soil.

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Are there plenty of fish in the sea? The elephant seals know.

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Urban farmers in the Los Angeles area are planning to rebuild after the devastating wildfires there.

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It seems that early humans thrived in the rainforests as well as the savannas of Africa.

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Otay Mountain in San Diego County, California, faces many threats. Its protection is important to the maintaining of biodiversity on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

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Critically endangered red colobus monkeys are making a comeback in the woodlands of the Niger Delta.

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An opossum in Omaha seems to be a particular fan of chocolate cakes!

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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