This week in birds - #651

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


I always enjoy watching the Double-Crested Cormorants whenever I'm near a body of water, and, thankfully, the birds are still common enough that they are almost always present on any body of water around North America. This species' population was declining, as were many birds, before the outlawing of DDT in 1972 but it is now considered stable, although the bird sometimes faces persecution from fishermen who consider it a rival. The cormorant is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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The current administration in Washington has released a climate report and, as you might expect, it was a bit of a farce. It has been denounced by researchers who have reviewed it.

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Light pollution at night can be a serious problem. Should we establish a "right to darkness"?

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The journey south continues for Monarch butterflies seeking their winter homes.

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The "Roadless Rule" protects 58.5 million acres of national forests and 1600 at-risk species. The current administration plans to gut it.

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Aardvark burrows offer homes to many different species and that can be a problem if one of those species is carrying a disease. 

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Here's an appreciation of one of my favorite birds, the Purple Martin.

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A new study identifies deforestation as the culprit behind declining rainfall in the Amazon region.

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80,000-year-old stones found at an archaeological site in Uzbekistan could prove to be the world's earliest known arrowheads.

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Finland and Poland are considering restoring their wetlands as one line of defense against possible land invasion by Russia.

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Could this be what the earliest penguins looked like?

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An orange nurse shark was caught recently off the coast of Costa Rica. The fisherman who caught it released it back into the sea.

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Restoring the bison to Yellowstone has helped to restore and reawaken the entire ecosystem there.

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Can we save the Kākāpō, the world's fattest parrot?

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A young Cooper's Hawk in New Jersey has apparently learned to use traffic lights to help it catch its prey.

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