Discovery at Deveaux! This short film follows a team of shorebird biologists as they confirm the first census of a newly discovered Whimbrel roost in 2019. The final counts amount to nearly 20,000 individuals, representing half of the entire Atlantic Flyway population of this declining species using a single barrier island in South Carolina.
Vast flocks of Whimbrels were thought to be a thing of the past, something out of tattered ornithological journals from a century ago. Then a South Carolina wildlife biologist made a major discovery: Nearly 20,000 birds roosting nightly on a sandbar just off the coast—the largest known concentration of this rapidly declining shorebird anywhere on Earth. Read the story.
Wildness on a Whim: South Carolina poet and ornithologist Dr. J. Drew Lanham reflects on the Deveaux Bank Whimbrel roost as sign of a new kind of hope—and a new definition of wildness. Read his essay.
Sep.30 2021– “Build back better, blah blah blah. Green economy, blah blah blah.”
Climate activist Greta Thunberg criticizes world leaders over “empty words and promises” during an international youth climate summit in Italy.
To world leaders,
“Betrayal.”
That’s how young people around the world describe our governments’ failure to cut carbon emissions. And it’s no surprise.
We are catastrophically far from the crucial goal of 1.5°C, and yet governments everywhere are still accelerating the crisis, spending billions on fossil fuels.
This is not a drill. It’s code red for the Earth. Millions will suffer as our planet is devastated — a terrifying future that will be created, or avoided, by the decisions you make. You have the power to decide.
As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency. Not next year. Not next month. Now:
Keep the precious goal of 1.5°C alive with immediate, drastic, annual emission reductions unlike anything the world has ever seen.
End all fossil fuel investments, subsidies, and new projects immediately, and stop new exploration and extraction.
End ‘creative’ carbon accounting by publishing total emissions for all consumption indices, supply chains, international aviation and shipping, and the burning of biomass.
Deliver the $100bn promised to the most vulnerable countries, with additional funds for climate disasters.
Enact climate policies to protect workers and the most vulnerable, and reduce all forms of inequality.
We can still do this. There is still time to avoid the worst consequences if we are prepared to change. It will take determined, visionary leadership. And it will take immense courage — but know that when you rise, billions will be right behind you.
It can feel incredibly hard to keep hope alive in the face of inaction. But my hope lies in people — in the millions of us who are rising to save the future. It lies in our marches, in our dogged determination to keep fighting, and in our trembling voices as we speak truth to power. My hope is rooted in action and fuelled by a love for humanity and our most beautiful earth. It’s what keeps me absolutely convinced that we can do this. And we must do this. Together.
With fierce hope,
Greta from Sweden, with Vanessa from Uganda, Dominika from Poland, Mitzi from the Philippines, youth activists across the world, and the whole team at Avaaz
AMAZON RAINFOREST BIRDS ARE SHRINKING AS TEMPERATURES RISE Birds in the Amazon rainforest have gotten physically smaller over the last four decades, and scientists believe that a warming planet may be the reason. While birds’ bodies have gotten smaller over time, their wings have gotten longer. The researchers believe this may be an adaptation to hotter temperatures. [HuffPost]
CLIMATE SUMMIT IS BARELY OVER AND BIDEN IS OUT HERE SELLING FOSSIL FUELS In the presidential debate in March 2020, President Joe Biden promised to “take on the fossil fuel industry.” But environmental advocates say Biden is breaking that pledge now as the administration prepares to hold the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history on Nov. 17. [HuffPost]
This 1 October 2021 video from England says about itself:
Harry Ewing, PhD student at the University of East Anglia and BTO, shares his research into Curlew in Breckland, tells us how the COVID-19 pandemic affected his work and thanks BTO major donors for supporting an extra field season to gather more data on this declining species.
When asked Monday about the violent images of CBP agents on horseback threatening migrants, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that while she didn’t have the “full context” of what was happening in these incidents, “I don’t think anyone seeing that footage would think it was acceptable or appropriate.”
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that the footage is “extremely troubling” and an investigation will be “conducted swiftly,” adding that the agency “does not tolerate the abuse of migrants in our custody.” In a subsequent statement to reporters Monday, Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz said he believed the agents were “trying to control” their animals but that officials would investigate the incident.
U.S. SET TO ADMIT LOWEST NUMBER OF REFUGEES EVER Despite Biden’s pledge to overhaul immigration and welcome refugees to the U.S., 2021 is on pace for a record low in refugee admissions, with 7,637 admissions as of Aug. 31. The refugee cap was set as up to 62,500 after pushback by advocates, but the U.S. is unlikely to meet that number by the Oct. 31 fiscal year deadline. [HuffPost]
This photo shows the view from a hide in the Rottige Meente nature reserve in Friesland province in the Netherlands. In September, we saw a bittern there. All three photos in this blog post are cellphone photos.
A few days later, a buzzard, hundreds of lapwings and a marsh harrier from that hide.
Brown Thrasher Poses For Cam In Savannah, Georgia – Aug. 27, 2021
Brown Thrashers are secretive, and hard to spot in their favorite spots under dense vegetation, but they can make a lot of noise as they rummage through the leaf litter. Here, the Savannah Osprey cam zooms in on a perching thrasher before it has a chance to depart from a branch.
AFGHAN REFUGEES LIVE IN LIMBO ON U.S. MILITARY BASES Nearly 50,000 Afghan refugees are living on military bases in the U.S., and many say they don’t have supplies for the winter and don’t know how much longer they will have to wait for permanent homes. The conditions are an example of what critics say is the Biden administration’s lack of preparedness when it comes to Afghan refugees. [HuffPost]
How fossilization preserved a 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab’s brain
A newly analyzed specimen is a ‘one-in-a-million’ find, researchers say
Paleontologists can spend years carefully splitting rocks in search of the perfect fossil. But with a 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab brain, nature did the work, breaking the fossil in just the right way to reveal the ancient arthropod’s central nervous system.
Of all soft tissues, brains are notoriously difficult to preserve in any form (SN: 10/31/16). Stumbling across such a detailed specimen purely by chance was “a one-in-a-million find, if not rarer,” says evolutionary paleontologist Russell Bicknell of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia.
The fossilized brain is remarkably similar to the brains of modern horseshoe crabs, giving clues to the arthropods’ evolution, Bicknell and colleagues report July 26 in Geology. And the brain’s peculiar mode of preservation could point paleontologists toward new places to look for hard-to-find fossils of soft tissues.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 