This week in birds - #555

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

A female (or is it a juvenile?) Ruby-throated Hummingbird rests in a crape myrtle tree in my backyard.

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Six months ago the world's nations met in COP15 and agreed to a pledge to halt biodiversity loss. How's that working out?

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If those pledges are not met, Nature is at risk of a serious breakdown.

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The Atlantic Ocean is at risk both above and below the surface because of the climate crisis.

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This week a heat dome extended across the country and is expected to last throughout the July 4 weekend.

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The extreme heat has already claimed some victims in Texas.

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An emerging El Niño event is having its effect on heating up the planet. 

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The heat wave in the North Atlantic is the worst in at least 170 years.

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And in the Himalayas, the glaciers are melting.

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This heat dome event was made five times more likely because of human-caused climate change.

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The ecological tipping points may be much closer than we had expected.

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The Environmental Protection Agency is being sued over its recent approval of two toxic herbicides that contain an active ingredient used in Agent Orange.

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In California, hundreds of sick or dead dolphins and sea lions have washed ashore as a result of a toxic algae bloom.

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Confused about native, non-native, and invasive plants? Audubon breaks it all down for you. 

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The Mormon crickets are back in Nevada. The state is crawling with them.

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Christian Cooper, the Black Central Park birdwatcher who unfortunately became famous in 2020 because a White woman made a racialized threat against him, has a new book about birdwatching called Better Living Through Birding.

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Stonehenge has fascinated me ever since I learned about it in school. But who actually built it?

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In Scotland, the endangered Capercaillie is making a comeback.

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In fact, the jungle is alive, even in urban areas.

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The Department of the Interior has designated nearly $4 million to protect and restore wildlife migration paths and habitats.

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A study found that protecting marine life also benefitted humans living nearby, to which I can only say, "Well, duh!"

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Human activity may be actually affecting Earth's spin.

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Tree loss is up sharply in tropical forests in spite of human pledges to halt deforestation.

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Here are some pictures from Rough Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary in Massachusetts.

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The Biden administration has moved to restore Endangered Species protections that were dropped in the administration of the previous president.

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Why does the Monarch butterfly have white spots on its wings? Rest assured, in Nature, there is always a reason!

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The Arctic Ocean is being Atlanticified. 

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The beautiful Western Tanager is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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Cuttlefish are remarkable creatures and they have an amazing ability to disappear right before your eyes as they blend with their surroundings so completely. 

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Rhynchosaurs were the dominant reptile on the planet for a while before the dinosaurs took over. And I admit I had never heard of them as far as I can remember.

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California's iconic Joshua trees have been given long-term protection.

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The giant African land snail has been spotted in Florida, yet another invasive species for a state that is overrun with them.

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Here's the week in wildlife pictures as presented by The Guardian.

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Looe Island is a tiny Cornish island where Nature is thriving.

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Rewetting England's lowland peat could help meet emissions targets according to a recent study. 

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Swapping a nation's debt burden for its spending on Nature is one idea to be discussed at a finance summit in Paris.

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Here's some good news: Some critically endangered Burmese Peacock softshell turtles have hatched and emerged from the mud of their nest in Myanmar.

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Finally, no, orcas have not declared war on humans.

Poetry Sunday: The Months by Sara Coleridge

So, according to Sara Coleridge, we are at the end of the month of "tulips, lilies, roses" and about to enter the month of "cooling showers." Ha! Not many cooling showers in July here in Southeast Texas. Sara Coleridge was Samuel Taylor Coleridge's daughter and she obviously lived in quite a different climate than the one where I currently reside. But we know what to expect. We will endure July and August and hope that September will begin to bring us some relief from the heat. Each month has its own personality.

The Months

by Sara Coleridge

January brings the snow,
makes our feet and fingers glow.

February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes loud and shrill,
stirs the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daises at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy dams.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hand with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit,
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasents,
Then to gather nuts is pleasent.

Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

This week in birds - not!

"This week in birds" is taking a much-needed vacation this week. It will return next week. Thank you for your loyal readership. 

                                                                                         

Mini reviews

What with one thing and another, I have seriously fallen behind on doing reviews of the books that I've read, so, in an attempt to catch up, here are a few mini-reviews. 

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A Room Full of Bones (Ruth Galloway, #4)

by Elly Griffiths

I have been very much enjoying reading Elly Griffiths' series featuring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. This one is set in Norfolk where the Smith Museum is preparing to open a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. but when Ruth arrives to supervise, she finds the dead body of the curator Neil Topham beside the coffin. Moreover, it was not a natural death and it seems related to other recent uncanny events in the area. Not to worry though; Even though DCI Harry Nelson has fallen ill (another of those uncanny events), Ruth and her druidic friend Cathbad are on the job!

My rating: 3 stars

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Blue Wolf in Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

This is another series I'm enjoying reading. It features Upper Michigan Conservation Officer Grady Service and is the second entry in the series. In this one, there are ongoing protests by a group of animal rights activists. The protests appear, at least on the surface, to be related to a double murder at a wolf lab which resulted in the release into the wild of a rare "blue" wolf. Service must defend his hallowed Mosquito Wilderness and the wolves that live there against poachers out to bag that "blue" wolf.

My rating: 3 stars

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Independence Square

by Martin Cruz Smith

I have long loved Smith's series featuring Detective Arkady Renko. This is the tenth in the series and I haven't found a clunker in the bunch. This one is a bit different from the others in that it has an autobiographical factor. We learn that Detective Renko is being diagnosed as having Parkinson's Disease, which in fact the author of the series has. It makes the story particularly personal. Also, there is a current affairs aspect as the story unrolls against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Arkady is determined not to dwell on his illness and he throws himself into work, searching for an anti-Putin activist who has disappeared. The activist, Karina, is the daughter of an acquaintance of his and he meets and falls for Karina's roommate, Elena, a Tatar from Ukraine. Complications abound!

My rating: 3 stars

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Beyond That, the Sea

by Laura Spence-Ash

This one unfolds against the backdrop of World War II. In 1940, a working-class couple in London makes the difficult decision to send their eleven-year-old daughter Beatrix to America for her safety. She will live with a family there for the duration of the war. Bea is scared and angry at being sent away from home but arriving in Boston, she meets her new family, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, and their sons, William and Gerald and they simply fold her into their world. It is a more affluent world than the one she was used to back in England, but Bea soon becomes fully integrated and the Gregory family becomes more natural to her than her birth family.

My rating: 3 stars

    

Poetry Sunday: A Summer's Garden by Robert Frost

What could be more delightful than a summer's garden filled with birds and flowers and all the things we love? Robert Frost would agree.

A Summer's Garden

by Robert Frost

I made a garden just to keep about me
The birds and things I love, all summer long.

I doubt not they'd live well enough without me;
How would I live without them -- their sweet song?

I made a garden and had my own flowers --
All that I cared to pick and more too, there.
Most of them died and fell in scented showers
Upon the beds, and colored the warm air.

Mine was not such a garden as I'd thought of --
A deep wild garden that no hand has trimmed
In many years -- a tangle that is wrought of
Old fashioned flowers 'neath old trees, barren limbed

But so my flowers brought the insects winging,
The butterflies, the neighbors' murmuring bees,
And birds one must not cage or they cease singing,
I asked no more, well satisfied with these.

My garden my fair garden! I saw wither
Flower, leaf, and branch, and from the maple bough
Leaves race across the bare beds none knows whither.
The lives I entertained where are they now?

This week in birds - #554

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

A Little Blue Heron searches for its dinner among the reeds along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

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There was an incredible sight along the Gulf Coast of Texas this week as thousands of dead fish washed ashore.

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The Antarctic is in trouble from the effects of climate change and we are making it worse.

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There are three living equid species of which the strikingly beautiful Grevy's zebra is the most threatened.

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Surprisingly, there is some good news regarding the endangered Red Knot.

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Will humans' time on Earth be known as the fire age, or pyrocene?

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"It's an ill wind that blows no good," says the old aphorism, and proof of that may be found in the fact that the drought has actually helped to restore an ecosystem.

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Could there actually be life on a moon of Saturn? There are tantalizing hints.

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Do wolverines occasionally like to snack on fish?

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And could this be the hottest year on record? It seems to be headed that way.

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This is the beautiful Yellow Oriole, or Gonzalito, a bird of South America and the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. 

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Last month was the warmest May for the world's oceans since records began to be kept in 1850.

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Here are some wonderful wildlife photos from this past week. And here are even more.

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Could the answer to a shortage of potable water be to desalinate ocean water?

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Wildcats are being reintroduced in secret locations in the Scottish Highlands.

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Moths don't get the acclaim they are due but they are VIPs (very important pollinators) maybe even more so than bees.

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Illegal reintroductions of rare butterflies to the United Kingdom pose a potential threat to other species.

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Animals have rights, too, and it is important that we recognize and respect that. 

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Dinosaur bones in Australia? "They're bloody everywhere."

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Warblers are on the move, passing through to their breeding grounds. 

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A Kemp's ridley sea turtle has laid her eggs on the shore of Galveston for the second year in a row.

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Feral hogs are no joke and there are now millions of them in the United States.

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Lions are returning to parts of Africa from which they had long been absent. 

The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths

I am thoroughly enjoying Elly Griffiths' series featuring forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway. My enjoyment is mostly related to the character of Dr. Galloway. She is a single middle-aged woman, the type of character that in many books would be portrayed as waiting and wishing for that special man to come along and complete their life. Not Ruth Galloway! She's much too busy digging up and interpreting the remains of the past. She is living the life she always dreamed of. 

This is the third entry in the series and in it, we find that Ruth has just given birth to her daughter, Kate, and she is struggling with the difficulties of juggling motherhood and work. 

When human bones surface on a remote Norfolk beach, Ruth is called in to investigate. This necessarily brings her back into contact with DCI Harry Nelson, the married father of her daughter. Awkward? To say the least!

The bones turn out to be around seventy years old bringing an association with the World War II era. But meanwhile, Ruth has been brought in to supervise the opening of a coffin that has been excavated near a medieval church. When she arrives on site she finds the museum's curator, Neil Topham, lying dead beside the coffin. And, of course, DCI Nelson is brought in to investigate the case. So Ruth is once again embroiled in a murder case alongside DCI Nelson.

There have been other spooky incidents recently and there is a suspicion that they are the work of a group called the Elginists, the goal of which is to repatriate the museum's extensive collection of Aboriginal skulls. Among the unexpected incidents has been the untimely death of the museum's owner, Lord Smith.

In addition to Ruth and Nelson, all the usual secondary characters are on hand for this one, including the sort of druid, Cathbad. In fact, Cathbad might be my favorite character in the series along with Ruth's cat, Flint. Those two are full of personality and it would be a much duller series without them.