This week in birds - #649

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


The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is another Hawaiian species, the ʻAlawī, a small, inconspicuous honeycreeper. There are four disjunct populations of the bird on the big island, Hawaii. Each of the populations is nonmigratory and show strong site fidelity throughout the year.

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Light pollution at night is a big problem for birds during migration and there is a movement afoot to "take back the night" and change that. 

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Streaked Shearwaters spend much of their time in the air and a lot of that time they are pooping! This behavior was accidentally discovered through video coverage that was meant to investigate something else altogether.

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A partial dire wolf skull (a species that went extinct around the end of the last ice age) that is set to be auctioned is expected to bring as much as $30,000. 

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Our current president is strongly anti-environment and is planning to dismantle the country's efforts to fight climate change. (Honestly, the stupidity, it burns!) 

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I've never understood some people's antipathy to gulls. I've always found them interesting and engaging creatures.

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This is the Blue Dasher, a beautiful dragonfly that actually thrives on pollution.

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The recent floods in Travis County, Texas washed away sand and revealed dinosaur tracks from 115 million years ago.

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The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnakes in Michigan are becoming more isolated because of habitat fragmentation and that is leading to inbreeding.

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Stone tools from more than a million years ago discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi reveal clues about some of our earliest human relatives.

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It seems that dolphins and whales actually interact with each other more than previously thought.

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And speaking of whales, did you know their ancestors walked on land?

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Here's how to attract goldfinches to your yard.

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And here's how one woman learned her appreciation of Nature.

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Nature seems to REALLY like its crabs. Why else would it keep evolving new ones?

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Fossilized hominin teeth that have been discovered suggest there may have been as many as four different lineages living in East Africa between 2.5 million and 3 million years ago.

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Ancient flip-flops? Maybe.

Comments

  1. David M. Gascoigne,August 23, 2025 at 4:20 AM

    Good morning, Dorothy. Thank you for the weekly roundup. It almost seems that the problem of light pollution affecting birds, causing substantial mortality, has been around forever, and talked about for just as long. A few attempts at remediation have been made, but it is always inadequate, generally voluntary in nature, far from universal - and the carnage continues. Forgive me if I am sceptical that it will change this time around! Have a great weekend - David

    ReplyDelete
  2. jabblogAugust 23, 2025 at 5:04 AM

    I found the information on whales utterly fascinating. It is astonishing how our knowledge increases and former facts sometimes become outdated theories. Palaeontology is such an interesting practice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dorothy BordersAugust 23, 2025 at 9:42 AM

      Paleontology has long been a favorite subject of mine.

      Delete
  3. Deb Nance at ReaderbuzzAugust 23, 2025 at 7:54 AM

    The light pollution during migration is a real problem. We had a member of a group working to solve that speak to our naturalist group some time ago. One of their suggestions was a movement sensitive night light.

    We seem to be learning more and more about ancient humans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dorothy BordersAugust 23, 2025 at 9:43 AM

      ...and the more we learn the more impressive they become.

      Delete

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