This week in birds - #655

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

This is a Black Phoebe. It is a resident near watery landscape features all along the west coast of North America and down into Central America and along the western coast of South America. Like other phoebes, it often nests near humans and even in or on human structures. Its population is increasing all along its range. It is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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Jane Goodall became my hero when I first read about her in the pages of the National Geographic back in the 1960s. I've followed her career ever since and I am saddened to know she is no longer physically among us, but what a legacy she has left!

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And at the opposite end of the spectrum, what a legacy this man will leave as he wages war on clean energy and seeks to revive "big coal."

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Scientists now believe our species could be older than previously thought, based on the reconstruction of a million-year-old skull.

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In a quarry in the U.K., five sets of tracks of four-legged sauropods and a three-toed carnivore have been found. The tracks are about 166 million years old.

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Indigenous people occupied the Arizona desert for centuries, a place now considered sacred to the remnants of that culture.

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Life-size engravings of animals dating to as much as 12,800 years ago have been found in Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert.

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Bearded Vultures return to the same nest site generation after generation and those sites often yield interesting artifacts for researchers. For example, historical nests in southern Spain contained more than 200 human artifacts including a 650-year-old sandal.

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Even after its destruction by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii continued to limp along as a much reduced shantytown.

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Octopuses are invading the the English Coast and gobbling up fish, crab, and lobsters in their path.

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Earthwork circles dating to 6,500 years ago (that's nearly 2,000 years before Stonehenge) have been found in Austria.

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A Whooping Crane chick has died of avian flu at a Wisconsin wildlife refuge. It was the first known death of a Whooping Crane from avian influenza.

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Ancient clay puppets, some 2,400 years old, have been discovered at a site in El Salvador.

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Southern sea otters along the California coast are doing their best to help with the problem of invasive European green crabs by gobbling them up.

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Africa's lion population is declining. What can be done to help them?

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Should the gray wolves of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming be on the Endangered Species List, or no? There is a difference of opinion among authorities who have a say in the matter. 

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To avoid predators, animals may employ opposite strategies; some display bright colors as a warning while others seek camouflage in their surroundings.

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And the winner of "Fat Bear Week" weighing in at more than 1,000 pounds is the aptly named Chunk. Chunk's road to victory was made more difficult due to having suffered a broken jaw in June. Still he managed to pack on those pounds and earn his crown.

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Here are pictures from The Guardian's "Bird Photographer of the Year" winners.

Poetry Sunday: The Tyger by William Blake

I seem to be stuck in the poetry of my youth these days. (I really need to read more current-day poets!) And this is one of the very earliest poems I can remember. After all these years, it is still a favorite.

The Tyger

by William Blake

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat.

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp.

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

This week in birds - #654

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

This is the Rough-legged Hawk, a bird that breeds in the Arctic and subarctic regions of the world and migrates south during the winter months.  During nonbreeding months, the birds migrate to a wide swath of the mid-section of North America. Some even get as far south as north and west Texas and northern Mexico. It's unlikely that the migrating hawks would get as far south as southeast Texas so I won't be expecting to see one in my backyard! This magnificent bird is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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It seems that we humans are having an effect on animal evolution.

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U.S. rivers are heating up in an unprecedented way.

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At least fifteen of the world's important archaeological sites are being threatened by the effects of climate change.

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And speaking of archaeological sites, archaeologists have uncovered the treasure-filled tomb of the first known ruler of the Maya city of Caracol in Belize.

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A trio of leopard sharks has been observed mating in the wild for the first time and a snorkeling scientist was able to catch the event on video.

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It's not only humans that have to dodge New York traffic; whales that swim offshore also have to dodge the many ships and boats in the area.

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The Chicago River was once a filthy mess but after a massive clean-up people are now swimming in it once again.

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Researchers counted the growth rings of the Sycamore Gap tree that two men illegally chopped down and they learned that it was 100 to 120 years old.

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The bird in the middle is the first known hybrid offspring of a mating between a male Blue Jay and female Green Jay. The mating occurred in the San Antonio area of Texas where the ranges of the two species overlap.

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It appears that our planet has a "quasi-moon," a celestial body that shares our orbit around the sun.

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The Marbled Murrelet nests in old-growth trees and those are getting harder to find. That is a problem for the continued existence of this tiny seabird. 

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Eco-grazing is becoming a popular way to clear out unwanted overgrowth and that's where the goats come in.

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A jaguar in Brazil has set a new record for the longest known swim by the species.

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You do not want to be outside during a lightning storm. Just this week, two elk hunters in Colorado were struck and killed.

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Orcas normally swim in groups but it seems there is one in the North Atlantic that prefers to swim alone.

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Could beavers be allies in helping to fight forest fires?

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Chimpanzees, it turns out, love fermented fruit and they may consume as much as the equivalent of 2.5 alcoholic drinks a day by eating it.

Poetry Sunday: Autumn Song by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Monday is the first day of autumn, probably the best season of the year where I live - barring hurricanes, of course. Let's celebrate the season along with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Autumn Song

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the heart feels a languid grief

Laid on it for a covering,

And how sleep seems a goodly thing

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift beat of the brain

Falters because it is in vain,

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf

Knowest thou not? and how the chief

Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the soul feels like a dried sheaf

Bound up at length for harvesting,

And how death seems a comely thing

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

This week in birds - #653

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week for this week is a bird that spends its summers in the central part of the United States, continuing down into Mexico and Central America. It is the sweet little Bell's Vireo, a bird that prefers thick cover near water and thus is often heard more than seen. It has a large range and its population is increasing, but it is threatened by the loss of its preferred riparian habitat. 

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A team of over sixty international scientists published a report this week that indicates that climate change is accelerating.

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And in other bad news, in an average week in 2024, three environmental defenders were murdered or disappeared.

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                                                                         Spotted lanternfly on a leaf.

Last week, weather radars across the mid-Atlantic region lit up with great swarms of lanternflies, an invasive species that has been making its way across the United States at least since 2014 when they were found in Pennsylvania.

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We may be due (or overdue) for an extreme solar event that could adversely affect our electrical grid.

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There's a cold spot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe. Scientists now think they have determined its cause.

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Be sure to go outside and look up on the night of September 21 when the giant planet Saturn will be at its brightest. 

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Scientists who study octopuses are finding that they favor using their front arms for tasks and the back arms to help with locomotion. (Octopuses are amazing. I think we still have so much to learn about them.)

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Our planet seems to be in the midst of an insect apocalypse and among the insects that are struggling to survive are Fiji's endemic ants. 

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Archaeologists continue to find more Mayan treasures in Central America, this time in Belize.

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This rare orchid exists only at two known sites. A Smithsonian ecologist is trying to restore the plant.

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In New Zealand, a rare left-coiling snail is in need of a mate and New Zealanders are trying to help him find one. 

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Mercury contamination from illegal gold mining and forest clearing that washes into the waterways is a major threat to endangered pink river dolphins in the Amazon.

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Samples of amber deposits from the time of the dinosaurs contain fragile insects and even a spider's web.

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If you live in an area where elk are found or have visited a national park where they are endemic, you are probably aware that they are currently in their annual rut.

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Mysterious white halos have appeared around metal barrels that were dumped in the ocean off the coast of Los Angeles. Scientists now think they know what causes them.

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Here are some marvelous images of birds from the sixteenth annual Audubon Photography Awards.

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And finally, this:

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The week that was as cartoonists see it

Poetry Sunday: End of Summer by Stanley Kunitz

I've featured this poem here before but here it is again. So sue me!

I actually like the poem quite a lot. I particularly like the image in the first stanza of the "unloved year" turning on its hinge. This year, which goodness knows has given me little reason to love it, will be turning on its hinge in a few days as the seasons change and we head into its last quarter. I can only hope that in these last three months the year's "agitation of the air" and "perturbation of the light" might finally redeem 2025 for me and give me a reason to remember it with fondness.

End of Summer

by Stanley Kunitz 

An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light

Admonished me the unloved year

Would turn on its hinge that night.

 

I stood in the disenchanted field

Amid the stubble and the stones,

Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me

The song of my marrow-bones.

 

Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.

 

Already the iron door of the north

Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows

Order their populations forth,

And a cruel wind blows.