Wordless Wednesday: Eastern Phoebe

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This week in birds - #138

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A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : The Cedar Waxwings are back! Just in time for the holidays and what a gift they are. A small flock of the nattily dressed birds have been making their way around the yard, renewing acquaintances with all their favorite trees, this week. I always look forward to seeing that first waxwing in the fall. I know I say this about all my backyard birds, but they really are one of my favorites. *~*~*~* Drought continues to be the big environmental news in the Southwest, even though the recent storms in California have offered some relief to that parched state. Some of the southwestern states have taken steps to reduce the amount of water that they draw from the Colorado River in order to keep from exacerbating the reduced water available to the river system. *~*~*~* A recent study showed that Golden-winged Warblers abandoned their breeding grounds in the mountains of eastern Tennessee in April 2014 just ahead of a devastating sy...
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Poetry Sunday: To Daffodils by Robert Herrick

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This week in birds - #101

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A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : The Red-bellied Woodpecker shows you how he got his name. *~*~*~* Paleontologists have discovered another feathered dinosaur from the group known as Oviraptorosauria , but unlike most of the others of this type that have been found in Central and Eastern Asia, this one was discovered in North America, the first one of its kind to be found here. *~*~*~* Why did the chicken cross the Pacific Ocean? Because a human carried him in a boat, and that fact has given scientists another way of tracking human migration. They do it by tracking the evolution of chicken DNA   on the islands. *~*~*~* The Kakapo is a critically endangered flightless parrot from New Zealand. Those trying to stave off its extinction had reason for rejoicing this week when the first baby Kakapo in three years was hatched. *~*~*~* As the Arctic tundra continues to warm up, it is releasing more carbon dioxide than can be absorbed by plants, thus increasing ...
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