Poetry Sunday: Midnight Snow by James Crew

No otters and no snow here but I can remember well living in places where there were both and I remember enjoying seeing otters playing in the water of a lake. That's why this poem spoke to me when I came across it in my search for a poem to feature this week. And so, here it is. I hope you enjoy it. 

Midnight Snow

by James Crew

Outside in the creek that feeds the lake
and never freezes, an otter slaps the water

with his paw to feel the current's pulse—

Slip in, lie back. Slip in, lie back. He shuts

his eyes and obeys, knowing the layers

of hair and underfur will warm him while

he floats on a faith we wish could carry us.

 

The sound of his splashing fades, but not

his joy in being pushed, light as driftwood,

back to the mouth of the den I have seen

carved out beneath the roots of a fallen fir

now packed with snow and lined with leaves

that promise his sleep will be deep.

 

Because no dreams wait softly for me,

I open the woodstove and strike a match,

hold the bloom of the flame to kindling

that catches quick as my wish: To be that

slick body sliding into the lake that holds

the moon, bright portal to glide through

without so much as a shiver, no doubt

about where I'm going, how to get there.

This week in birds - #664

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the seven-colored Painted Bunting. Happily, this is a species that is still maintaining its population throughout its range which includes the southern tier of the United States and northern Mexico. Its greatest threats are being trapped for the illegal pet trade and, as for many other species, habitat loss. Despite its bright colors, the birds (especially the males) are difficult to see because they are very secretive and often hide in dense thickets and grasses.

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Research reveals that predators like alligators are our allies in protecting and preserving their habitats.

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It seems that melting ICE might have benefits for the natural environment as well as the human environment.

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Surveys of the overwintering population of Monarch butterflies in the West show a slight increase from last winter, but the numbers are still extremely low.

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Scientists say that vaccines could potentially help protect some vulnerable species.

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Archaeologists believe that a 430,000-year-old stick that has been unearthed in Greece may be the oldest wooden tool yet discovered. 

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A young mountain lion that had wandered into a San Francisco neighborhood has been successfully captured and released in the wild.

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New research indicates that Tyrannosaurus rex may have taken as long as forty years to reach adulthood.

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Camels actually played an important role in the U.S. military's exploration of the Southwest.

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Paraquat-maker Syngenta has settled a case that would have explored the pesticide's link to Parkinson's disease. They didn't want to go to trial.

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Amsterdam has banned outdoor advertising for fossil fuels and meat products.

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It seems that snakes eating snakes in the wild is a fairly common thing. 

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AI-generated images of animals are spreading disinformation that can distort the public's understanding.  

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Here's a Tom Toro cartoon that sort of says it all:

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Admittedly it has nothing to do with birds and the environment (maybe the political environment) but here's the image that has broken the hearts of so many of us this week: five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos taken by ICE agents as he came home from preschool. Damn this administration!

  

Challenger

 

The space shuttle Challenger exploded forty years ago today taking the lives of these seven people. Those of us who witnessed it will never forget.

This week in birds - # 663

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

As Earth warms, how will penguins, evolved to live in a world of snow and ice, survive? Can they adjust fast enough to meet the new conditions? These Chinstraps are among the species most affected by the changing conditions. 

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Here's the sad list of species that we lost in 2025.

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According to a new United Nations report, the world has entered an era of global water bankruptcy which has irreversible consequences.

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A plant called the black-bulb yam tricks birds into spreading its seeds by producing fake berries that are actually small clones of itself. 

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A Mayan heritage site is under threat from a logging concession that has been granted to a furniture company. 

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A 67,800-year-old stencil of a hand found on the wall of an Indonesian cave may be the world's oldest rock art.

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In 2025, researchers at the National Museum of Natural History described a previously unknown species of pterosaur that had been unearthed in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.

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Based on some baffling bone artifacts discovered by an amateur archeologist, scientists believe that humans may have been hunting whales as long as 5,000 years ago.

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A  407-million-year-old log-shaped fossil found in 1843 may represent a previously unknown branch of life.

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Monarch butterfly colonies in California and Mexico ebb and flow as they continue to disperse.

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Twin mountain gorillas have been born in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Twin births are extremely rare for gorillas.

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Five hundred years ago, a cat left its paw prints on a medieval manuscript as the ink was drying. As one who has loved and lived with cats all my life, I salute this ancient member of the tribe for leaving its mark!

 

Note to readers

We have out-of-town guests arriving today and that will necessitate my absence from these pages for the next few days. But don't forget about me! Keep checking back for I shall return, hopefully sometime next week. And thank you to all my faithful readers. You are appreciated more than I can possibly say.

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Poetry Sunday: Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

I grew up in a time and place that featured pretty cold winters. It was not unusual for the temperatures to dip into the teens (Fahrenheit) or even lower and stay there for days at a time. Our house had two fireplaces and the kitchen stove that all burned wood. My father would rise before daylight, even on Sundays, and get the fires started in each of them. By the time I got up, the house would be warm. I never thanked him. I never thought anything about it. It was just what he did. He was my father. I do think about it, and him, now and I regret how thoughtless and thankless I was. But what did I know then of love's austere and lonely offices?

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices? 

 

This week in birds - #662

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is this lovely creature that seems to be looking at us very judgmentally. It is the Antioquia Brushfinch, a bird of the lower layers of shrubby habitats at the northern end of the Central Andes in Colombia. It is generally found in couples or small family groups. The bird is severely threatened by habitat loss. Its known population at present consists of 109 individuals and the population is decreasing. Perhaps it has the right to be judgmental.

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Here are the species that are on The Revelator's watchlist of species at risk in 2026. 

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There were conservation successes in 2025 and here are some that made that list.

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On the Severn River, a tributary of Chesapeake Bay, it was a grim year indeed for Ospreys. Only fifteen chicks from the 63 nests survived.  

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This is Craig, the super-tusker elephant from Amboseli in Kenya. He was well-known in conservationist circles and news has come that he has died of natural causes at the age of 54. 

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So our president boasts of plans to boost oil production in Venezuela but investors do not seem eager to climb onboard, and that may be just as well for the planet as it endures climate change.

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Flat-headed Cats have been seen in Thailand for the first time in almost thirty years. They had been classified as "likely extinct" but that was, thankfully, not the case.

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In a first for insects, stingless bees from the Amazon, the planet's oldest bee species, have been granted legal rights.

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Thousands of dinosaur footprints dating from the Triassic Age have been found in the remote Italian Alps.

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Rare Red-Necked Ostriches have been reintroduced in Saudi Arabia in an area where they went extinct in 1941.

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Recent research has found that hunters used poisoned arrows to slow down their prey as much as 60,000 years ago.

This week in birds - #661

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

This is actually last week's Bird of the Week and possibly my favorite winter visitor. (Well, okay, I have many favorites!) It is the lovely little White-throated Sparrow. It is still fairly common around our neighborhood in winter, although some sources mark it as being in decline.

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The well-named Golden-winged Warbler is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week for this week. Unlike the White-throated Sparrow, its population is not in good shape. It has lost nearly sixty percent of its population since 1966, mainly due to habitat loss. The ABC is working with several partners to try to restore appropriate habitat.

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The weedkiller Roundup is still out there, still doing damage to the environment and the 2000 study that declared it safe has now been retracted.

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The link between humans and the natural world still exists. The frogs tell us so.

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The COP30 meeting in Belém, Brazil has been plagued by extreme heat which might be expected at a meeting about climate change.

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In Washington (state) the Spotted Towhees and other birds are giving their own "Yelp Reviews" of forest restoration work.

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Scientists can now track individual Monarch butterflies using tiny sensors that can be attached to them. It is revealing new information about their journey.

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The Arctic is the hottest it has been in 125 years and that is not a good thing.

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The current administration in Washington is proposing changes to the Endangered Species Act that could represent new threats to the already endangered Piping Plover. 

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Fifteen coal plants that were scheduled to be closed will apparently live on, thanks to the current administration.

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The current administration is also proposing to limit the EPA's authority to limit pollution is rivers, wetlands and other bodies of water across the country.

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We knew wolves were clever but do they really use tools?

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In a monthlong global operation led by Interpol, nearly 30,000 trafficked animals were rescued.

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Ancient eggshells of a crocodile that inhabited the inland waterways of Australia some 55 million years ago have been discovered by paleontologists. 

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African Gray Parrots have become victims of  TikTok's obsession with them.

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Worker ants being tricked into killing their own queen? It's a plot straight out of "Game of Thrones" but apparently it is true.

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Are polar bears adapting to a warmer climate? Changes in their DNA are suggestive.

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Iowa's farms produce an incredible 110 billion pounds of manure in a year. Where does it all go?

'Peggy Martin' lives (and blooms) on

 

This is my 'Peggy Martin' rose that lives and blooms on the side of our garden shed in the backyard, a fairly inconspicuous part of the garden. I have often regretted that I planted it there when I bought it fourteen years ago and wished that I had planted it in the front yard where passersby and more neighbors would be able to see and admire it. But 'Peggy' doesn't seem to care if anyone sees her. She produces her beauty every year just because that is what Mother Nature instructs. And I sit in my backyard and gaze at that beauty and it brings me joy and a kind of peace to know that, even in this troubled and chaotic world, 'Peggy' blooms on.

(Here is a link to the story of the 'Peggy Martin' rose.)