This week in birds - #690

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Gray-bellied Comet, a bird found on the Pacific slope of the Andes in north-central Peru. This little hummingbird is endangered and its population is decreasing. There may be less than a thousand of them left in the wild. Its main threat is habitat loss as lands are cleared for agriculture and livestock grazing. Climate change is also a factor. As the world gets hotter and more drought-prone, it impacts the bird's habitat and the availability of its foods.

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The main environmental news of the week was, of course, the floods in Nepal that have wreaked such havoc on that country.

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But in Indonesia, the crippling drought of many months continues.

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We lost a giant this week. Wendell Berry, the Kentucky poet, novelist, and environmentalist has died at the age of 92.

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Another giant who left us recently is Dolly Parton. Known of course for her music, wildlife conservationists also know her for her efforts to help save the (then endangered) Bald Eagle through her theme park's collaboration with American Eagle Foundation beginning in 1991. 

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The Trump administration continues its quest to give away part of our public lands, in this case Yosemite National Park.

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Catastrophic wildfires in France are doing long-term damage to many wildlife populations.

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                                                            Kākāpō with chick.

Here's some good news from New Zealand: The population of the endangered Kākāpō, the world's only nocturnal and flightless parrot, now tops 300 for the first time in 75 years.

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A population of an extremely rare plant species, Indianthus virgatus, has been found in Sri Lanka for the first time in 170 years.

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I don't typically think of reptiles making sounds but they do, in fact, have quite the vocabulary.

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The incredible whales known as narwhals are called the "unicorns of the sea."

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The White-headed Duck of Spain is the star of an amazing success story in conservation.

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A study of corals reveals that El Niño events have increased in strength in recent years, perhaps due human activity contributing to the heating up of the planet.

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Blue crabs have taken over the Adriatic Sea and Italian researchers have released thousands of baby octopuses to combat them.

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The ghost elephants of Angola are nocturnal, stealthy and deeply wary of humans which is likely very wise of them.

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The invasive spotted lanternfly is covering trees in western Massachusetts and could spell doom for some of the vegetation there.  

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Jackie, the beloved Big Bear Valley Bald Eagle who died recently, had her own memorial day on September 4 as proclaimed by the California State Senate.