This week in birds - #40

A roundup of news from the world of birds and the environment this week:

In early 2006, the first Eurasian Collared-doves started showing up in my yard. A slow trickle of birds soon became a flood and they became the dominant dove for about a year and a half in the yard. This one was seen today in the yard.

Then the White-winged Doves followed the same pattern - a trickle became a flood - and by the end of 2007, their numbers had overwhelmed the Collared-doves. Today both doves, along with Mourning Doves and Inca Doves are residents in my yard but the White-wings are definitely the most numerous. As birds' ranges continue to shift and expand, any day now, I expect the Common Ground Dove to show up and become the fifth dove in my yard.

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Red-breasted Nuthatches are irrupting this year. They have already been sighted in many southern states, including Texas. I'm on the lookout for them in my yard but haven't seen one yet. Have you sighted one in your area?

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Birds are definitely on the move. A Eurasian species, the Common Cuckoo has been found in Santa Cruz, California. This species has seldom been seen in North America.

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The dry conditions that have prevailed throughout much of the country this year have provided an ideal environment for producing brilliant fall foliage. The Northeast, destination of many leaf peepers at this time of year, is expected to be particularly colorful this autumn.

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An experiment with Anna's Hummingbirds has proved that hummers can fly backwards just about as efficiently as they can fly forwards. This will not really be a surprise to anyone who has spent time observing hummingbirds.

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The border wall between Texas and Mexico, highly controversial with many Texans who live along it, is changing travel patterns and ranges for many mammals, some of them, like the ocelot, endangered species, which previously traveled easily back and forth across the border.

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Wildlife officials are removing Bald Eagle nests from the Norfolk Botanical Garden in Virginia because having the big birds in that area poses a threat to aircraft taking off and landing at Norfolk Airport.

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Remember the boll weevil? Having grown up in cotton country, I certainly do. It is still a pest and scientists still look for ways to control it. While experimenting with pheromone traps, they discovered a way to attract and control the milkweed weevil which attacks and feeds on the plants which Monarch and Queen butterflies depend on for their nurseries. A bit of lagniappe and Monarchs need all the help science can give them.

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Audubon Guides blog has a very interesting featured post on bird migration. About half of the 10,000 species of birds on earth migrate.

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Global warming creates problems and concerns right around the world but a major area of concern is the Indian subcontinent much of which depends on water from the glaciers in the Himalayas. Like glaciers all over the world, those glaciers are melting, potentially leaving several million people thirsty.

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The survival of a Mexican salamander, the ajolate, may well depend on the cleanup of the waterways where it swims. Those waterways are now polluted by fertilizer and other farming chemicals runoff.

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We know about the problem of lead poisoning in western birds like the endangered California Condor which feed on animals shot and left in the field by hunters. But it is not only here that lead poisoning is a problem. In the UK, at least 10% of deaths of waterbirds collected from 1971 to 2010 resulted from lead poisoning. Fully one-third of living birds tested were also affected.

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Around the backyard:

It is autumn and the leaves are beginning to fall, making it a little easier to see the birds in trees, even tiny birds like this Carolina Chickadee.

Or this Downy Woodpecker in my neighbor's pine tree.

And speaking of tiny birds, the little female Rufous Hummingbird that I have featured in several blog posts is still with me and still riding roughshod over the other hummers that venture into her part of the yard. I snapped this picture of her today.

The Rufous frequently tangles with this little female Ruby-throated Hummingbird who has her own territory staked out in the yard.

We are supposed to get a cold - well, cool - front through here tonight, The high temperatures for the next couple of days are only supposed to reach the 70s. It will be interesting to see whether the cooler weather pushes some of my hummers on their way. I estimate that I still have around ten of the birds doing daily battle in my yard.