This week in birds - #79

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

Violet-crowned Hummingbird photo by Greg Homel, courtesy of ABC.

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week this week is the Violet-crowned Hummingbird, the only North American hummingbird that does not have a colorful gorget.  The Violet-crowned Hummingbird is easily distinguished from all other North American hummingbirds by its pure white underparts, iridescent bluish-violet crown, and red bill with black tip. This is mostly a bird of Mexico and only occasionally wanders as far north as the United States. The bird is not considered threatened in Mexico, but it is vulnerable to human disturbance and habitat loss due to overgrazing and drought.

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Questions continue to be asked about the safety and efficacy of the Keystone XL pipeline and many of the questions are being raised by landowners whose land the pipeline would pass through. There continue to be concerns about the pollution of groundwater and aquifers that serve as drinking water for a large swath of the middle part of the country.

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Also, there are at least seven endangered species, including the Piping Plover and the Sprague's Pipit that would potentially be adversely impacted by the building of the Keystone pipeline.

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Penguin populations will generally fluctuate in coordination with the climate. A cooler climate means more penguins; warmer climates mean fewer of the birds.

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It is hummingbird migration season, a time when many western hummingbirds are known to wander into more easterly areas. This blog post features pictures of some of the birds that have been found in places where they would not normally be. 

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An extensive article on the eBird system and how it is changing birding appeared in The New York Times this week.

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Rising sea levels and shifting weather patterns that affect their prey are causing problems for Atlantic Puffins and Little Terns, making it more challenging for them to survive.

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The Atlas of North American Calling Insects is inviting members of the public to record insect sounds and send them in.

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Birds have a remarkable ability to calculate the rate of speed of a vehicle on the road and are able to flush from its path in time to avoid being hit. It's not foolproof, of course, and sometimes they do miscalculate, but for the most part, their system works very well indeed.

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Monarch butterflies continue to be scarce this summer following a one-two whammy of drought and an inclement winter.

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Six more dead dolphins have turned up on New Jersey beaches this week, continuing a pattern of unusual and generally unexplained deaths of the animals along the East Coast this summer. Authorities are still trying to definitively isolate the causes of the deaths.

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The Center for Disease Control reports that Lyme disease is much more  prevalent  than had previously been thought.

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Surprisingly, scientists have discovered that long-legged, long-necked flamingos and short-legged, short-necked grebes are probably each other's closest living relatives.