This week in birds - #95

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


While much of the country has been blanketed under heavy snows for the past couple of weeks, the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California has had seriously meager amounts of snow this winter. This is very bad news for cities west and south of the range which depend on snow melt from these mountains for their water. It is also bad news for the animals which depend on rivers and streams being replenished by snow melt from the mountains.

*~*~*~*

Birders choose to do their birding in many creative ways. Here is a birder who is attempting a Big Year...on bicycle!

*~*~*~*

The recent rash of Bald Eagle deaths in Utah, which I had reported here in my last roundup, has been determined to have been caused by West Nile virus. We think of this as primarily a summer disease, but apparently the temperatures there have been conducive to the spread of the mosquito-borne virus. Evidently, the eagles got the disease by eating waterfowl that had been infected.

*~*~*~*

The EPA has published the first rule governing emissions of carbon dioxide from new power plants.

*~*~*~*

Salvage logging in the area where the Rim Fire occurred in 2013 may be putting at risk the rare Black-backed Woodpecker which depends on that habitat.

*~*~*~*

A tracking device recovered from a male Red-necked Phalarope from Scotland has revealed a unique migration by that bird. He flew thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Pacific.

*~*~*~*

The Northern shrimp population in the Gulf of Maine has collapsed and, consequently, a moratorium has been put on shrimping in that area for the foreseeable future. This has dire economic implications for local restaurants that depend on the crustaceans. The shrimp are moving out of the Gulf and going farther north in reaction to warming waters. The same thing is happening with the famous Maine lobster.

*~*~*~*

Several bird conservation groups are attempting to block the installation of a wind farm on the shores of Lake Erie in the path of an important flyway for migrating birds.

*~*~*~*

Antarctic penguins are attempting to adapt to the fast-changing climate which is affecting even that frigid area. In some cases, the penguins are having to climb 100 foot high ice cliffs to get to their breeding ground.

*~*~*~*

It is accepted fact - at least by people who accept the idea of evolution - that birds' skeletons have structures that are equivalent to our fingers. Now researchers are attempting to discover which "fingers" the birds actually have.

*~*~*~*

We are nearing the centennial anniversary of the death of the very last Passenger Pigeon, a bird named Martha who died in a zoo cage. These wild and beautiful birds were essentially blasted out of existence by human hunting. Just in time for the sad anniversary, a new book by Joel Greenberg has been released. It is called A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Fight to Extinction. I heard a discussion of the book on NPR this week. It sounded very interesting.

*~*~*~*

While residents of the northern hemisphere have been dealing with heavy snow and record cold temperatures recently, residents in the southern hemisphere have had the opposite problem - record high temperatures in many places. For example, parts of Australia have been suffering with temperatures that climbed upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

*~*~*~*

Around the backyard:

The feeders, including the hummingbird feeders, have been under heavy pressure by hungry birds all week. I've had to refill them a couple of times. This is a drastic change from the recent past. I was particularly glad to see the return of the House Finches and the American Robins this week.

*~*~*~*

My Christmas present was a new Apple iMac. Its delivery was delayed by snow and inclement weather, but it finally arrived and I'm trying to learn to communicate with it. It's a bit like learning a whole new language.

My first real computer was an Apple, way back in the Stone Age of computing, and for several years, we always had Apples, but at some point, we started getting PCs. It's what we had at our offices so it seemed practical, I guess.

I've had an iPad for a while, but this is my first "big" Apple in years. I love it! It is faster than the speed of light and can leap tall buildings in a single bound! Now, I just have to master it.

Most especially, I have to learn how to deal with my photos on the iMac. You may notice that this post is photo-free. I hope by my next entry, I'll be more proficient in using my new toy!