This week in birds - #631

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is a lovely member of the jay family, the Island Scrub-Jay. It is only found on Santa Cruz Island, the largest of California's Channel Islands. It inhabits the oak and pine forests and scrublands throughout the island and its numbers are decreasing. 

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When a 5.2 magnitude earthquake shook the area on Monday, the elephants at the San Diego Zoo quickly formed a protective circle around their young. Those protective instincts remain strong in the animals.

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Unfortunately, such protective instincts do not seem to be present in the current administration in Washington which proposes to get rid of hundreds of environmental regulations meant to ensure our health and safety.

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In other news of this administration, they are planning cuts to the federal climate disaster agency which could have a devastating effect on our endangered rivers, even the mighty Mississippi.

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And, of course, the cuts and changes they propose will allow more mining, construction, and other such environment-destroying activities, including the destruction of endangered species' habitats.

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Touting the administration's commitment to "clean, beautiful coal," the Secretary of the Interior visited mines in central Alabama last week.

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Vultures may not get a lot of love from the public (although, personally, I quite admire them for their graceful flight and the essential work they do) but conservationists in Africa are hoping to change that.

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Conservationists in this country are fighting a holding action against the administration to try to protect the environment and, as a part of that struggle, they have filed suit over the rollback of green policies. The administration has even pulled federal webpages that tracked climate and environmental justice data, because who needs that, right?

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Ant smugglers? Apparently they do exist and four have been arrested and charged in Kenya.

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And honeybees, it seems, just can't catch a break. They are under threat again from a plethora of natural and human-made sources.

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They've long been known to exist but finally there is photographic and video proof of the cephalopod known as the colossal squid. A juvenile member of the species was filmed in March in the South Atlantic Ocean.

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Back on land, Sweden has been livestreaming its great moose migration and lots of moose fans are captivated by the action. 

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The amount of plastic being recycled globally has stalled out at 9%.

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In England, people are planting hedges once again and that is a very good thing for wildlife.

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Republican lawmakers were hoping that a new report would give them ammunition to fight against offshore wind development but they were disappointed. 

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In Argentina, a capybara population explosion is causing problems for some exclusive communities.

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E.T., phone home? Astronomers have detected a possible signature of life on a distant planet.

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And back on this planet, woodrats are disappearing from the eastern United States and scientists are working to save the critters which are an important part of the ecology of the region.

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Coastal wildflowers may look delicate but in fact they are quite tough and hardy.

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This is Astoria, the Wild Turkey who is quite at home in Midtown Manhattan.

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Finally, here is the story of Buford, who is a very good boy indeed.