This week in birds - #698

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

This is the Ruffed Grouse, the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. This bantam-sized member of the grouse/pheasant family is one of North America's twelve native grouse species. It is non-migratory and prefers forest habitats. The Ruffed Grouse's numbers are increasing and its greatest threats are human hunters and the disappearance of forests. Its conservation status at present is of least concern.

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In Washington last weekend a memorial was dedicated to the veterans of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, military operations of 1990 and 1991. The memorial draws its inspiration from a desert oasis with walls reminiscent of sand dunes and a shaded grove with trees and bubbling water.

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A dinosaur fossil that has been sitting in a London museum since 1924 has finally been given a name - Invictibellatrix amberina which translates as "unconquered female warrior."

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A well-preserved Zapotec tomb has been discovered in Mexico and is the most important archaeological find in that country in a decade.

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A new genetic study suggests that native Hawaiians descend from a group of "ultravoyagers" who sailed about 4,400 miles from Easter Island.

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Another set of voyagers, monarch butterflies, is beginning to arrive at their overwintering region in Mexico.

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A 4,000-year-old mud brick found in the rubble of a Bronze Age house in western Turkey contains the imprint of a dog's paw, testifying to the long relationship between our two species.

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Research on the once-great Mayan metropolis of Caracol in the forest of Belize is debunking much of what had been believed about that Mesoamerican civilization. 

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The Bangka slow loris, a venomous primate of Southeast Asia, had been thought to be extinct but it turns out it was hiding in plain sight. 

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This is an illustration of the so-called "hell chicken," an ancient dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period that ate mostly fruit.

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Crows can make decisions based on visual information twice as fast as humans can. Here are six proven ways to attract these very smart covids to your yard. 

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A stone found in the Sahara turned out to be a 4.1-billion-year-old meteorite from Mars, the oldest ever found.

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An Italian farmer found some unknown seeds in his attic and planted them. They came up and turned out to be from an ancient grain.

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An analysis of Inca mummies of sacrificed children showed that they were given coca leaves, corn beer, and an ayahuasca compound before death. In other words, they were drugged.

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The giant bats of Madagascar are shrinking in size and human hunting may be to blame.

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Here are pictures of the beautiful red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.

This week in birds - #697

(I apologize for the lateness of this post.) 

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Common Raven, an acrobatic flyer known for doing rolls and somersaults in the air. The raven can be found throughout much of the northern hemisphere around the world, including the northern regions of North America. They are very smart birds which can make them dangerous predators of vulnerable animals. Native people of the Pacific Northwest regard the raven as an incurable trickster. We know that Edgar Allan Poe must have found them a bit creepy based on his famous poem. Ravens in the wild can live very long lives. The oldest recorded one lived for 22 years, seven months. Their populations have increased over the last fifty years and the bird's conservation status is presently of least concern.

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A necropsy has revealed that Jackie, the wild Bald Eagle in California whose life I had followed on camera for eight years, died of bird flu. This was a surprise since her symptoms did not indicate bird flu and there was no outbreak of the disease in the area.

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The United States now has its 64th national park. It is the Chiricahua National Park, previously the Chiricahua National Monument, in southeast Arizona.

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Fall migration is underway in the Mississippi Flyway that runs through the middle of the continent, and over last weekend more than 1,000 of the birds taking that route died or were injured in collisions with windows in Chicago according to monitors there.

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A family of Barn Owls is now living in Manhattan, the first of their kind known to have nested there in modern history. 

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The Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico took place sixteen years ago but deep-sea species have shown little evidence of recovery there.

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Climate change is making the jobs of animal control officers even harder as wild animals move into populated areas. 

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African elephants shape the savanna ecosystem in which they live. They continue shaping it even after death.

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In other elephant news, scientists are using A.I. to help decode their vocalizations.

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Dam removals in the Northeastern United States are encouraging fish to return to those streams. 

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Humpback whales have benefitted from forty years of conservation efforts on their behalf.

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Critically endangered vaquitas in Mexico's Gulf of California will now be in greater danger as Mexico is reducing the area that is protected for them.

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An animal that looked like a hybrid of a platypus and an otter lived alongside dinosaurs some 165 million years ago.

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The winner of Brazil's presidential election could determine the fate of the country's rainforest.

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                                   A nesting green sea turtle.

Here's some good news: Green sea turtle populations are making a remarkable comeback around the world. 

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Colorado's wildlife mitigation efforts are making things safer for everyone.

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Rhode Island may be the smallest state but its residents grow the biggest pumpkins. There is one that weighed in at 3156 pounds at the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers Weigh-Off. 

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Finally, here are more pictures for you:

- Fifteen photos of coral reefs.  

- Sixteen pictures from the world's best wildlife photographers.

This week in birds - #696

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Yellow-crowned Night Heron. A bird of aquatic habitats, both oceans and fresh water, the bird is found throughout North and South America and the Caribbean Islands. Its population size is unknown but appears to be stable and its conservation status is presently of least concern. Its two major threats are loss of habitat and the use of pesticides, both of which are attributable to humans.

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Dams around the world hold so much water that they have actually shifted Earth's poles. 

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October's Big Day of birding on October 10 turned out to be a REALLY big day.

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Project FeederWatch starts on November 1. If you haven't already signed up, there is still time. 

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A Miami airport police operation found two smugglers with a total of 21 birds in their pants.

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What is perhaps the world's oldest shipwreck - some 4,700 years old - has been discovered off the coast of Turkey. Much of the residue of its cargo still remained.

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Researchers in Turkey have also unearthed a fragment of the world's oldest known peace treaty.  

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Scientists have discovered two new species of sea spider in the ocean around the Pacific Northwest.

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A couple of retirees in Virginia have turned their neighboring farms into a wildlife corridor.

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Bird taxonomy is about to be updated. As usual there will probably be changes as some species are either split or lumped together.

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Wildlife biologists in Australia are vaccinating Albatrosses by hand in an attempt to control the spread of avian flu in Tasmania. 

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A 50-million-year-old slab of rock found in Wyoming preserved hundreds of  freshwater herring.

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Here's the story of the "vine that ate the South" - kudzu.

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Researchers have found that Tree Swallows in the northern U.S. and Canada face a greater risk from climate change than do their fellows in more southerly climes.

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A family of Barn Owls that has moved into New York City's Upper West Side may be the first to nest in Manhattan in modern history.

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Here are some amazing pictures from winners in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.

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Who doesn't love pictures of pandas?

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And here are some quite hilarious pictures from the 2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards.

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What are the happiest states in the country? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hawaii is number one.

This week in birds - #695

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the beautiful Baltimore Oriole, the male of which is pictured here. During summer they can be found throughout much of eastern part of the United States and parts of Canada. The member of the blackbird/oriole/troupial family is one of the earliest birds I can remember from my childhood, probably because it is so flashy. Currently their population, like that of many other birds, is decreasing but they are still considered to be of "least concern." Their main threat is habitat loss and pesticides.

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The death of a lab worker in Russia from infection with the bacterium that causes plague is causing scientists to worry, which means that we should probably all be worried. 

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Here are the stories of five birds, including the Passenger Pigeon (seen above), that have disappeared. Their loss is a cautionary tale for us.

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The oldest land animal alive is Jonathan, a 194-year-old Aldabra giant tortoise. Scientists hope that studying his DNA might provide clues to longevity. 

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There is a hole in our stratosphere, the size of which fluctuates every year. This year's hole was the biggest in twenty-five years.

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A diver cleaning up trash from a Wisconsin lake discovered a 1,000-year-old dugout canoe at its bottom.

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Neanderthals long carried a reputation as a brutish and unintelligent branch of humanity but a reassessment finds them to have been intelligent and rather sophisticated.

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The mysterious armored pangolin is being relentlessly hunted and is vanishing from habitats in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists are working to unlock the secrets that might save it.

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One hundred years ago, an extinct crocodilian's skull was found in the rocks used to build the Sphinx. It turns out it was a previously unknown species.

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We are still learning new things about T. Rex, the world's most famous dinosaur and our understanding of the "tyrant lizard king" has changed quite a bit from when he was first found.

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And a fossil of a winged dinosaur is giving indications that flight might have evolved multiple times among the species.

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A new archaeological discovery shows that ancient people east of the Mississippi River had feasted on chocolate for at least 1,000 years.

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Scientists are using artificial intelligence to decode the vocalizations of African elephants.

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Africa's Bearded Vulture has long teetered on the brink of extinction but it is being brought back by a specialized breeding program.

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Another species that has been on the brink of extinction is the rhinoceros and again efforts are being made by dedicated conservationists to ensure that it doesn't pass that brink. 

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Two small South American birds, the Bare-throated Bellbird and the Red-legged Seriema, are the loudest in nature, able to reach a deafening 122 decibels.

This week in birds - #694

A roundup of the week's news f birds and the environoment: 

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the wonderful little Eastern Screech Owl. This little owl doesn't seem to mind living close to people. In fact, it sometimes uses their buildings and lawns in many suburban and even urban settings. Even though it may be present it is often unseen and is more likely to be detected by its vocalizations. Its conservation status is considered to be of least concern but its population trend is decreasing.

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In Ohio, toxic fracking waste is bubbling up from the ground and it is becoming a political issue.

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In Albania, the wild Vjosa Narta River is under threat from development planned by Jared Kushner and the Albanian government. The people are fighting back.

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It seems that eating a healthy diet is also good for the environment.

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A high schooler has invented a plant-based plastic that removes microplastics from the environment as it degrades. Maybe there is hope for our species. 

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The nor' easter that lashed the East Coast this week turned up part of a ship believed to be from an 1884 shipwreck.

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Saving the habitats of sharks and rays is the important element in saving their species.

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Archaeologists have unearthed what may be the world's oldest computer. It is more than 2,000 years old.

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One of the many strange sights presented by this week's nor'easter was that of a shark swimming through the flooded streets of New Jersey.

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In Iran, saving the maral (Caspian red deer) depends on volunteers who work to save its habitat.

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Vandals chopped it down three years ago but now England's beloved Sycamore Gap tree is showing signs of life.

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This tiny diamondback terrapin with two heads was discovered on Cape Cod.

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A massive deep-sea roly poly is able to go for years without food.

This week in birds - #693

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Blue-capped Hummingbird, a resident of the forests of the Mexican highlands. This stunning little bird, also known as the Oaxaca Hummingbird, is seriously endangered and its population is decreasing. It is estimated that there may be less than 1,700 left in the wild. As is true of so many of the birds of Central and South America, the chief threat to the species is habitat loss due to deforestation. Conservation organizations are working to protect its habitat and help to ensure its continued survival.

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Thursday mornings at the Morrell Nature Sanctuary in British Columbia find volunteers removing nonnative plants that threaten that ecosystem. 

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In this political season, toxic waste that is bubbling up in Ohio has become an issue in the gubernatorial race.

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There are more than 1,500 kinds of bat spread across every continent except Antarctica but where did the species originate?

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Protecting habitats is the key to saving species such as endangered sharks and rays.

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This is the Leopardus tilcayo, a three-pound wildcat found in the cloud forests of the Andes Mountains in Bolivia. It is the first new feline species to be discovered in a century.

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You can track the migration of Pacific Northwest monarch butterflies on a new app.

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Two new stick insect species have been discovered in Australia.

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The current administration in Washington is making it easier to kill endangered wildlife.

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On a Mexican island, pygmy raccoons are learning to make toys and to sip margaritas!

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China's electric grid is emitting a super-pollutant that is cooking the planet.

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In a first, sea turtles have been spotted nesting on the U.S. West Coast. It may be thanks to the super El Niño forming in the Pacific.

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In northern Iran, the conservation effort to save the Caspian red deer, or maral, continues in spite of the war.

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An Aztec Codex, one of the most prized visual accounts of Aztec history, has been returned to Mexico City on loan from France and will be on display there for three months.

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Humans have breached seven of the nine "planetary boundaries" necessary for life to flourish on our planet.

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This little cutie is the Karure, or Black Robin, a critically endangered species found only on the remote Chatham Islands off the coast of New Zealand. It is that country's 2026 Bird of the Year.

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And finally, here are fifteen wonderful photographs of Kenya's wildlife.

This week in birds - #692

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

A hummingbird that is about the size of a butterfly is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It is the Short-crested Coquette, a bird of the state of Guerrero in Mexico. It is one of the rarest of Mexican hummingbirds. It is estimated that there are less than 1,000 left in the small area that it inhabits and that its population is decreasing. The main threat to its habitat comes from unsustainable logging and agricultural expansion.

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A new species of cat has been discovered in the cloud forests of the Andes in Bolivia. It is smaller than our house cats.

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It turns out that not all "invasive" plants are all bad. Some serve a useful purpose. 

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Three wild dogs in Zambia have made a record-breaking journey of more than 2,500 miles in search of mates.

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It seems that human evolution (which is still ongoing) favors genes linked to red hair and less male-pattern baldness.

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The current iteration of the Environmental Protection Agency, which does not live up to its name, has announced that it is eliminating a rule that limited planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas.

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A federal judge has ruled that the administration's plan to halve the workforce of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is illegal.

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A 66-million-year-old feather trapped in dinosaur poop may offer a clue as to how some birds survived extinction.

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Meanwhile, dinosaur footprints discovered in North Dakota might represent the first T. rex trackway that has ever been found.

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Five hundred adult Partula snails are being mailed from the Detroit zoo to Tahiti giving a whole new meaning to the term "snail mail." It's part of an international effort to reestablish wild populations of the snail.

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A new study suggests that some of the fish living in the Great Lakes might be more than four hundred years old.

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A strange object sticking out of a creek in California turned out to be a mastodon tooth.

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Iceland is one of the three countries that still hunts whales but it is currently considering a bill that would ban the practice.

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A tomb discovered this year in Peru contained 38 individuals and a rich trove of funerary goods from the pre-Inca Chimu' civilization of 600 years ago.

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A new map that traces where petrochemical emissions come from shows that just ten percent of facilities produce 53% of the industry's emissions.

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When elephants raid farms they may actually be looking for medicinal plants.

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Tasmanian devils and humans lived alongside each other in northwestern Australia as far back as 45,000 years ago.

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Here are some ways that people of the past used magic to protect their homes.

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Two mountain-dwelling marmots have been discovered living in the San Francisco Bay Area many miles from normal habitat. It's unclear how they got there but there is speculation that they hitched a ride in the engine compartment of an automobile. Regardless of how they got there they were described as "chonky" and very well-fed.

This week in birds - #691

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is a species that was only discovered in 2017 in the mountains of southwestern Ecuador. It is a member of the hummingbird family, the beautiful Blue-throated Hillstar. Because of the destruction of its habitat and loss of its favored nectaring plants, it is considered to be critically endangered and thought to be decreasing. There may only be around one hundred individuals left in the wild.

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When Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth came out twenty years ago, he listed buying energy-efficient appliances including lightbulbs as one way to combat climate change. Some thought that was a very paltry suggestion for fighting such a big problem but it turns out that in that as in so many other things, Al Gore was right.

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A federal judge (appointed by Trump) has ruled that Americans have no right to safe drinking water.

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August 2026 tied for the month with the hottest global temperatures on record.

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Trump has ordered a "review" of Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves and Mexican wolves. It is likely that that is a first step in removing those protections.

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Some hunter-gatherers of 25,000 years ago were apparently users of betel nuts which are known for their mind-altering properties.

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This country's symbol, the Bald Eagle, was saved from extinction with the help of Canada.

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Toxic dust and PTSD may be accelerating brain aging among 9/11 first responders.

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The state of Illinois now classifies plastic pellets as a pollutant.

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The extinct cat that once roamed North America was long thought to be a cheetah, but it turns out that was wrong. It was more closely related to the puma.

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Peruvian archaeologists have discovered ancient tombs from the Chimu kingdom that have not been touched by looters.  

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A study has revealed that almost half of the world's farmers are poisoned by pesticides every year.

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New York City's Mayor Mamdani has released documents that reveal that first responders who rushed to the World Trade Center twenty-five years ago were likely exposed to dangerous toxins.  

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Hawaii has often dodged the path of hurricanes but not this summer.

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How did vertebrates first develop eyes?

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It seems that the smallest planet in our solar system, Mercury, is getting even smaller. 

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A gene that helped bowhead whales adapt to frigid Arctic waters may also be a key to their extraordinary longevity.

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As important as it is to save the whales, it may be just as important to save the microbes.

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Birds are migrating, mostly by night. Help them by turning off outside lights.