Grosbeak!

Our goldfinches left several weeks ago.  The cedar waxwings came through in at least three big waves, starting in February (and the last just over a week ago).  House finches moulted, and the breeding males have bright red heads. Migrating robins left us by the end of January, but a lot more residents stayed with us.

We have at least one, and maybe three cardinal families.  A black-capped chickadee family stuck around.  Haven’t seen a titmouse in a month, but I think they’re still in the neighborhood.  The black-chinned hummingbird family is back, and maybe a few other hummers.  The resident blue jays and white-winged doves duke it out every day.  Carolina wren stayed, and may have already fledged; but there are too many wrens for one family — is that a Bewick’s wren?

What’s THAT?

White-winged dove, left, can’t scare away the rose-breasted grosbeak from the songbird feeder. Photo by Ed Darrell

Look closer. Photo by Ed Darrell

It’s a rose-breasted grosbeak, Pheucticus ludovicianus.  It seems late for migrating birds, but only because so many migratory species migrate earlier these days.

Haunts of the rose-breasted grosbeak, from Cornell University’s ornithological laboratory.

Would love to have a grosbeak family, but the Cornell ornithologists say this is fly-through territory.  Maybe that explains why it won’t scare by the white-winged dove, Zenaida asiatica.  Dallas is the western edge of the grosbeaks’ migratory path, but the eastern edge of the dove’s territory.  They probably don’t see much of each other.

We don’t even advertise clean restrooms.

More:

• Gorgeous Grosbeaks (georgiabackyardnature.com)
• The long flight home (toledoblade.com)
• Bird Songs for Bird Lovers (onegodnews.wordpress.com)
• Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks (naturenotesnow.wordpress.com)
• Grosbeaks and chimney swifts coming and going (heraldtimesonline.com)
• Beedie Bird Photo: Bewick’s Wren (mentalhealthed.com)
• More Signs of Spring…More Birds! (sewingforlife.wordpress.com)
• 294 Species and One Shattered Record on “Almost Perfect” Big Day (birds.cornell.edu)
• spring exploding on Snake Mountain (snakemountainmuse.wordpress.com)

Annals of global warming: No, polar bears are not “fine” — suffer from loss of sea ice

Press release from The Journal of Animal Ecology (links added here):

For polar bears, it’s survival of the fattest

One of the most southerly populations of polar bears in the world – and the best studied – is struggling to cope with climate-induced changes to sea ice, new research reveals. Based on over 10 years’ data the study, published in the British Ecological Society‘s Journal of Animal Ecology, sheds new light on how sea ice conditions drive polar bears’ annual migration on and off the ice.

Led by Dr. Seth Cherry of the University of Alberta, the team studied polar bears in western Hudson Bay, where sea ice melts completely each summer and typically re-freezes from late November to early December. “This poses an interesting challenge for a species that has evolved as a highly efficient predator of ice-associated seals,” he explains. “Because although polar bears are excellent swimmers compared with other bear species, they use the sea ice to travel, hunt, mate and rest.”

Caption from EurekAlert: An adult female polar bear wearing a GPS-satellite linked collar with her two 10-month-old cubs waits for the sea ice to re-form onshore in western Hudson Bay, Manitoba, Canada. Photo Copyright Andrew Derocher, Univeristy of Alberta.

Polar bears have adapted to the annual loss of sea ice by migrating onto land each summer. While there, they cannot hunt seals and must rely on fat reserves to see them through until the ice returns.

Dr. Cherry and colleagues wanted to discover how earlier thawing and later freezing of sea ice affects the bears’ migration. “At first glance, sea ice may look like a barren, uniform environment, but in reality, it’s remarkably complex and polar bears manage to cope, and even thrive, in a habitat that moves beneath their feet and even disappears for part of the year. This is an extraordinary biological feat and biologist still don’t fully understand it,” he says.

From 1991-97 and 2004-09, they monitored movements of 109 female polar bears fitted with satellite tracking collars. They tagged only females because males’ necks are wider than their heads, so they cannot wear a collar. During the same period, the team also monitored the position and concentration of sea ice using satellite images.

“Defining precisely what aspects of sea ice break-up and freeze-up affect polar bear migration, and when these conditions occur, is a vital part of monitoring how potential climate-induced changes to sea ice freeze-thaw cycles may affect the bears,” he says.

The results reveal the timing of polar bears’ migration can be predicted by how fast the sea ice melts and freezes, and by when specific sea ice concentrations occur within a given area of Hudson Bay.

According to Dr. Cherry: “The data suggest that in recent years, polar bears are arriving on shore earlier in the summer and leaving later in the autumn. These are precisely the kind of changes one would expect to see as a result of a warming climate and may help explain some other studies that are showing declines in body condition and cub production.”

Recent estimates put the western Hudson Bay polar bear population at around 900 individuals. The population has declined since the 1990s, as has the bears’ body condition and the number of cubs surviving to adulthood.

Caption from EurekAlert: This is a subadult polar bear on a lake on the shores of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada in November waiting for the sea ice to re-form. Copyright Andrew Derocher, Univeristy of Alberta.

Because polar bears’ main food source is seals, and these are hunted almost exclusively on sea ice, the longer bears spend on land, the longer they must go without energy-rich seals. “Climate-induced changes that cause sea ice to melt earlier, form later, or both, likely affect the overall health of polar bears in the area. Ultimately, for polar bears, it’s survival of the fattest,” says Dr. Cherry.

He hopes the results will enable other scientists and wildlife managers to predict how potential climate-induced changes to sea ice freeze-thaw cycles will affect the ecology, particularly the migration patterns, of this iconic species.

###

Seth Cherry et al (2013). ‘Migration phenology and seasonal fidelity of an Arctic marine predator in relation to sea ice dynamics’, doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12050, is published in the Journal of Animal Ecology on Wednesday 20 March 2013.

More:

• Journal of Animal Ecology site
• An abstract of the study (which study  is, alas, behind a paywall)
• Seth Cherry’s academic page
• Dr. Andrew Derocher’s academic page
• Cherry’s work highlighted in Polar Bears: Proceedings of the 15th Working Meeting of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group, 29 June-3 July, Copenhagen, Denmark
• For polar bears, it’s survival of the fattest (esciencenews.com)
• For polar bears, it’s survival of the fattest (sciencedaily.com)
• More evidence that polar bears and brown bears have exchanged genes in the past (retrieverman.net)
• Polar bears ‘hit by warm climate’ (independent.ie)
• For polar bears, it’s survival of the fattest (eurekalert.org)
• Fox And Friends: Polar Bears Prove Climate Change Is ‘Not Really Real’ (thinkprogress.org)
• Bid to ban polar bear trade fails (bigpondnews.com)
• Starving polar bears. (loe.org) (This site has a good, but very sad, interview with Dr. Derocher; it also links to an audio of the Living On Earth radio program from which the interview is excerpted.)
• Obama Administration Finalizes Polar Bear Extinction Plan (earthfirstnews.wordpress.com)
• Bid to halt polar bear trade fails (guardian.co.uk)
• Anthony Watts leads denialist charge; a second disinformation site; a source of the incorrect propaganda, and another site pushing it.

Hog wild in Texas: Ranchers, guns, and science working against environmental disaster

Unusual?  No, this is really a typical marriage of agriculture, government agencies, science and hunters, working on problems of wildlife management, feral hogs in this case.

Notes from Texas Parks & Wildlife:

Feral hogs are running wild across Texas, at great cost to farmers, ranchers, and native wildlife. Hunters are helping, but science may prove critical to controlling the invasion on a broader scale. For more information on feral hogs and feral hog control, visit: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/…

When it comes to feral hogs, every Texan turns environmentalist.

More:    

Sign for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department headquarters – Wikipedia image

• Central Texas city trying to cope with feral hogs (reporternews.com)
• Feral hogs cause havoc in neighborhood (wtvr.com)
• Central Texas city trying to cope with feral hogs (star-telegram.com)
• Some Texas landowners profiting from feral hog invasion (southeastfarmpress.com)
• Beaumont cemetery gets state help against hogs (star-telegram.com)
• CNBNEW Hunting and Fishing: Hunters Permitted to take Feral Hogs (gloucestercitynews.net)
• Pennsylvania boar hunting ban nears approval (triblive.com)
• Beaumont cemetery gets state help against hogs (kfdm.com)

Occasional Tuesday tweet: Wren on the rose, Bewick’s or Carolina?

I’ve been calling these guys Bewick’s wrens (Thryomanes bewickii) for a couple of years, based on an identification I made a couple of years ago — but checking today to be sure, I’m thinking this is a Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) instead.

In any case, a couple of days ago it paused for a few minutes in our backyard rose arbor, long enough I could try to get a good shot with just a 200mm telephoto, and with colors dulled by the window.

Wren in the rose arbor — ruddy color suggests it’s a Carolina wren, but I’ve been calling it a Bewick’s wren; pausing for its photo on Inauguration Day – Photo by Ed Darrell

Bewick’s wrens probably have more grey on their bellies; this one looks ruddy enough to be a Carolina wren.  (I just learned “Bewick’s” is pronounced like “Buicks.”)

Wrens stick around all winter now; they didn’t just over a decade ago.  This family has been with us for at least three years — two young this year successfully fledged.  By now it’s almost impossible to tell which are the young, which the parents.

Gulf fritillary butterfly on blue porterweed — a few feet from the rose arbor where the wren posed, but months apart. Photo: Ed Darrell

On our patio we have a saga continuing with Gulf fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanillae), their larva, and passion vine.  It seems our neighbors eradicated passion vine, so when the frits start moving north in the spring, they find our passion vines as the only ones in town.  The females go nuts laying eggs, and at some point we have a surplus of larva who denude the vines in a week.  Late hatching larva probably die off.

The butterfly books suggest that we cull the larva, but we don’t have the heart.  At some point in the spring the wrens wake up to the issue, and they cull the larva for us.  The vines recover, a new wave of frits hatch out, and the cycle begins again.  From June through September, the passion vine loses any leaves it puts out within 48 hours, usually.  But the wrens probably eat well.

The wrens seem never to perch where we can see them when they sing.  I suspect these little guys of having a much better voice than most wrens, but the great arpeggios I hear may be another bird, perhaps a warbler, that I just don’t know (good reason to go spend time at the local Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center, yes?).

More:

• All About Birds bird guide, from the Ornithology Lab at Cornell University
• Carolina Wren at National Geographic site;
• Bewick’s wren vs. Carolina wren, article at Cornell
• Nature Writers of Texas, “Bewick’s Wren, our Second Breeding Wren”
• Tom Munson’s wren gallery of photographs

Montreal baby experiences terror of being ‘lifted up by eagle’s wings’ (hoax?)

East Coast son Kenny sent this video, noting his reaction was the same as the guy in the film; an encounter with a golden eagle in a Montreal park:

You can take the eagle out of the wild, but you can’t take the wild out of the eagle.

Looks mostly like a golden eagle to me — anyone want to make the case it’s a different bird?

What’s going on in Montreal, I wonder, that would make a golden eagle think a human baby might make a good meal?  (No, I don’t think the bird was trying to give the kid a thrill.)

Other reports of similar incidents around Montreal?

Update:  WHAT?  IT’S FAKED? Thoughtful reader Luisa in comments refers us to Chris Clarke’s Original Blog™ Coyote Crossing, which updates from expert birder Kenn Kauffman who says, as I wondered, it’s not a golden eagle, and other things look hoaxed. (While you’re looking around, check out Luisa’s Crow and Raven; bird photos that will make you jealous.)  You’d think an incident like that would have made it to the newspapers and television stations in Montreal, but I’ve found nothing — have you?)

Update, December 19, 2012:  Now the CBC covers the tale,  noting that it is most likely a hoax.  The film’s maker or YouTube poster has not defended it that I can find.  Watch carefully — the “baby” doesn’t move during the time it’s on the ground, through the bird’s plucking it up and dropping it.  There’s plenty of time to swap a dummy out with a real kid in the stroller while the camera is pointed away.  CBC found a Montreal ornithologist who claims it looks more like an osprey than an eagle.  I’ll buy that.

More:

• At The Atlantic blogs, Adam Clark Estes provides a smattering of history of similar events, but avoids saying it means it’s the End of Days only barely.=

Note to hikers in Provo Canyon: This is not Bigfoot

Not Bigfoot:

Bear on the Misty Falls Trail, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks – photo by Spencer Darrell, rights reserved

Assume that thing in the brush is a bear if it looks vaguely like a bear; if you’re filming, do so as you back up, and only through a very long telephoto lens (bears can sprint up to 30 mph; you want a 300-yard head start).   A bear can do more damage to you than Big Foot; don’t mess up the bear’s thing with tourists looking for cryptofauna.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Spencer Darrell, one of Our Men in California.

More:

• Alleged Big Foot Sighting Goes Viral (abcnews.go.com)
• Is Bigfoot lurking around Provo? (abc4.com)
• Bigfoot-like beast has hikers running scared in Utah (myfox8.com)
• Cryptozoology – Re: Provo Bigfoot Encounter (disclose.tv)

“Who you calling a squirrel?”

Ground squirrel at Camp Cris Dobbins, BSA:

13-lined ground squirrel, Ictidomys tridecemlineatus, photographed by Ed Darrell, at BSA Camp Cris Dobbins, Colorado

Here’s an ass you’ll really like, if you have room

Wild burros on the range – Wikipedia photo

If you’re in Lubbock this weekend, and if you have a corral that needs an equine inhabitant, you can buy an ass — a burro — from the Bureau of Land Management.  Or a horse.

Do a favor for some ass today, if you can:

From the coolly-named Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (some links added):

Wild horse, burro auction set at Panhandle-South Plains Fairgrounds

More than 50 animals are expected to be adopted.

Posted: July 11, 2012 – 11:13pm  |  Updated: July 12, 2012 – 12:32am

By ELLYSA GONZALEZ

AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

The United States Bureau of Land Management will host a wild horse and burro adoption at the Panhandle-South Plains Fairgrounds today through Saturday.

More than 50 animals are expected to be adopted.

According to a news release, animals are periodically removed from the range to “maintain healthy herds” and protect the land. It says more than 225,000 wild horses and burros have been adopted since 1973.

The animals are described as “iconic symbols of America’s western heritage.”

Adoption fees will start at $125, as set by law.

The age requirement to adopt an animal is 18. Buyers must have no animal abuse on their records as well as room for the animal to dwell.

Buyers’ records will be checked at the time of adoption.

At least 400 square feet of corral space is required per animal as well as a 6-foot corral fence for adult horses and a 5-foot fence for yearlings. Animals must also have access to food, water and shelter.

Buyers must load animals in covered stock-type trailers with swing gates and sturdy walls and floors, according to the news release.

People who adopt horses at least 4 years of age will receive a one-time care-and-feeding allowance of $500 from the bureau after one year upon receiving official ownership titles.

The news release states that no younger horses, burros and trained animals are eligible for the allowance.

Adoptions will be from 2-6 p.m. today, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m.-noon Saturday. Animals are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Bureau staff will be available at the site to help with loading, questions and applications. The fairgrounds are located at the northeast corner of Broadway and U.S. 87.

For more information, call (866) 468-7826 or visit http://www.blm.gov/nm/oklahoma.

A formerly wild burro after adoption. 2005 photo from Wikipedia

By the way, you’re qualified to participate in discussions here, right?  I mean, you do know the difference between a burro and a burrow, don’t you?

More: 

• Thoughtful Thursday – The Horse, Crescent City, California(seapunk2.wordpress.com)
• BLM adoption program in Sacramento will offer 14 horses, 5 burros (sacbee.com)
• Wild Horse Auction in Sacramento Offers 14 horses and 5 burros (community.teskeys.com)
• Mustang rescue organization raising funds to save mustangs from slaughter truck, (Nevada mustangs in Pennsylvania)  (examiner.com)
• Wild mustang advocates seek to preserve Western icon (Plant City, Florida) (tbo.com)
• Experts Urge BLM to Halt Massive Arizona Burro Roundup in High Desert Heat (Sonora Desert, Arizona) (rtfitchauthor.com)
• Wild mustang advocates seek to preserve Western icon (Florida) (tbo.com)
• Federal officials round up wild Calif. burro herd (sacbee.com)
• Wild horse adoption set for Tooele (Utah) (abc4.com)
• Adopt a Burrow (Tucson, Pima County, Arizona) (faircarnivals.com)

Turk’s Cap, native Texas flower in 90 seconds

Short piece from Texas Parks & Wildlife:

Turk’s cap is a native Texas shrub that attracts hummingbirds, butterflies and moths. This easy-to-care for plant is named for the shape of its small blooms. To learn more about Texas native species and habitats, see http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/wildlife_diversity/

Must admit I was unaware it’s a Texas native, though Kathryn has had it in all of our Texas gardens.  I love the blossoms.  I wish our local hummingbirds loved it as much as the photo in the video shows, but we have other plants they love and a feeder.  Butterflies like it, too.

Few other plants equal the intense red of the flowers.  Turk’s cap requires less water than many less spectacular, non-native plants.  Ours keep coming back year after year.  What more do you want in a good garden plant?

I wish my photos were so good as those used in the film.

More, and related material:

• To add great summer color and beauty, look to hibiscus, althaea and Turk’s cap (miamiherald.com)
• Common Flowers in Texas (proflowers.com)
• Flying Flowers: The Beauty of Butterflies (showmeoz.wordpress.com)
• How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden (proflowers.com)
• Small world: part 2 – mysteries of the lantana (natureofphotography.wordpress.com)

Possibly more ‘possum

More shots of our rather tame, wild neighbor.

S/he may have been trying to reach the safety of the area under the heat pump -- but the dogs caught on, and "treed" it on the fence. I worried about rabies, but it seemed healthy.

I’m torn, really — are they cute, or really ugly?

Walt Kelly would have been pleased at its familiarity with the idea of a mugwump, as it demonstrates, here.

The hairless, "rat" tail is one of the least attractive features. How much cuter would it be with a furry tail?

He does have a very cute, pink nose, however. You could get used to dealing with these little guys.

Playing with the ‘possum in the backyard

No, not “playing possum.”  Playing WITH the ‘possum.

The mostly-dachsund harasses any animal that may wish to take up residence under our shed — or, in some cases, under the heat pump.  The animals usually stick around for a while, though, because there is so much good stuff to dig up there.  For our part, we don’t mind when they dig up and dispose of the grubs, most of the time.

But these creatures — a possum, a raccoon a couple of years ago, armadilloes from time to time, or even rats (before Smokey the cat took them out, one by one) — eventually wander off, mostly unseen by us because they’re nocturnal.

Yesterday morning both dogs went nuts, and when I looked out, I realized they had something treed.  Between the mostly-dachsund and the border setter, they average out to a couple of beagles, and they can tree something if they want to.  Can’t get it, but they can tree it.

It's an election year, so why shouldn't one of Pogo's cousins be on the fence?

It’s probably the same one I saw a few weeks ago when taking coffee grounds to the compost pile (maybe the caffeine is keeping this guy up days, eh?).  Kenny caught him crossing the alley late one night, in the headlights, of course.

I brought the dogs in, and turned them out an hour later, thinking the guy had plenty of time to get to his daytime hiding place.

They treed him again. (Actually, that’s the second treeing, pictured above.)

Later they got him on the fence in a different part of the yard.

Possum caught in the early morning, peeking through the Chinese photinia (not red tip). Flash photography confuses the little guys, I think.

By this time I worried that the critter might be suffering from an illness — like rabies, which tends to make nocturnal animals come out in daylight, and be mean.

But there are no other symptoms.  I was relieved this morning to find new digs from the critter.  If he, or she, is digging for food, it’s probably not rabid.

In his jaunts around the world last year Kenny mentioned how ugly possums are, to one of his friends from Britain, who immediately took issue.  Cute?

Turns out Kenny’s friend was referring to the Australian possum, which is quite cute.

Australian ring-tailed possum, photo by kookr. Australia has 27 different species of possum, all of them cuter and more cuddly than their American cousins.

Ours is not an Australian import.

I hope the bob whites come back, too.  Maybe it was just the drought that discouraged them last year.

It’s been a good year for wildlife, at least those with wings.  One day last week we had a tree full of cedar waxwings, passing through.  Blue jays and white-winged doves flew around them, and into the same tree.  There were a bunch of robins out — making eight weeks of sightings of the things, which leads me to understand some sizable population is staying in the Dallas area now, instead of just migrating through as they would, formerly.  On the live oak, the yellow-belly sapsucker probed for new grubs.  And on the trunk of the red oak the waxwings gathered in, another woodpecker, wholly oblivious to the cacophony, looked for emerging insects itself.   On local roads I’ve seen a bobcat — first for Texas, for me — and a few coyotes (while cousin-in-law Amanda has video of what looks to be wolves, in California!).  We haven’t gone out to look at the snowy owl in Rockwall, but there’s a chance of adding a rarity to the life-list.

With luck, we’ll get the toads, soon.  We should do well — Kathryn’s worked hard to make the yard a refuge for wildlife.  We’re mostly organic, so there should be no poisons to accumulate in any insect-eating critters.  We feed birds, several different species, and we have water for animals in front and back yard.  The National Wildlife Federation will certify your yard as a backyard wildlife habitat.  Working to get there is most of the fun; watching the wildlife is the gravy.

Backyard wildlife study is great fun.

More:

• Possum (writing26letters.wordpress.com)
• Woman Busted For Trying To Sell Flying Possums On Facebook (laist.com)
• Aupossum Bon Pain (cuteoverload.com)
• Golden Brushtail Possum Is The New Cuteness (buzzfeed.com)

More misunderstanding of the case against DDT

Well-meaning but misinformed dog breeder Terrierman (a guy who goes by the handle PBurns, too)  is just the latest to fall victim to false and nearly false claims about DDT and its effects on birds.

One of the claims made by pro-DDT and anti-environmental protection, anti-science groups is that DDT is not the bad guy in bird deaths.  The late DDT-nut Gordon Edwards said DDT had nothing to do with eagle deaths, and pointed to the 300-year decline in eagle populations from the time European settlers began shooting at them.  This idea has been touted by the chief junk science purveyor, Steven Milloy, and by many others over the years.

So, in one of his several posts slamming eagle conservation efforts that include stopping the use of DDT, Terrierman said:

What’s the story? Simple: that Bald Eagles and Osprey were pushed to the edge of extinction by DDT.

Not True.

Actually, that is true.  Terrierman got it wrong.  DDT was, indeed, threatening the very existence of the bald eagle.  While it is true that there were other pressures, some long-standing, it is also true that once those problems were cleared, DDT still barred the recovery of the eagle, plus other species like osprey, peregrine falcons, and brown pelicans.

What is the story?  The story is that eagles have been under assault since Europeans found America.  By 1900, eagle populations across North America were dramatically and drastically reduced.  A federal law in 1918 made it illegal to shoot eagles, but it had little effect.  A tougher law passed in 1940 finally got some traction.

But eagle recovery didn’t take off.  In the late 1940s and early 1950s bird watchers, and bird counters like those volunteers who contribute to the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count, noticed that young eagles disappeared.  Simply, adult, breeding eagles were not able to produce young who survived to migrate, mature, and breed later.

The culprit was DDT.  DDT kills young eagles in three ways, known in the 1960s.  It poisons them so they cannot grow in the egg.  It poisons them so they die after a period of growth.  It poisons them so they are unable to eat and digest properly, so they die shortly after they hatch.

DDT can also screw up the sexual organs of young birds, so they are unable to breed — perhaps a fourth way DDT kills young, by simply preventing their creation.

Then, in the 1970s, we found another way DDT kills species:  DDT makes the eagle hens unable to form competent eggshells.  The young die because the eggs cannot survive incubation.

DDT also kills adult eagles, especially migrating birds.  DDT accumulates in fat tissues, those fats that migrating birds burn.  When the birds migrate, the DDT comes out, and it can literally stop the heart or brain of the bird in flight.  (It kills bats the same way.)  Birds lost in migration rarely get found for necropsy.   The bird count simply falls, the population sinks one individual closer to extinction.

Does the dog breeder know all of this?  I can’t tell — I tried to correct his errors at his blog site, but after I provided a link to an article that showed DDT appears to be harming California condors as well — in a post he has censored in moderation and which will never see the light of day at Terrierman, I predict — it’s clear he’s not up to gentle correction.

One more blog from which I am banned from telling the facts.

PBurns, if you’re bold enough to comment here, your comments won’t be censored (so long as not profane).  We need robust discussion, and I encourage it.

Below the fold — my final post to Terrierman, which he won’t allow through moderation.

Can the Houston toad survive Texas wildfires and droughts?

New short from the Texas Parks and Wildlife people:

The smoke may be gone but the Bastrop fires of Labor Day weekend are still a smoldering concern for biologists. They’re keeping tabs on the Houston Toad. And with only an estimated 2,000 left in Texas, this endangered species is facing its next challenge as the drought continues. More on Houston toads at http://www.houstonzoo.org/HoustonToad/

For background, see this earlier reel from TPWS on the fires at Bastrop State Park:

Joy of pollination, according to Louie Schwartzberg

It’s a TEDS Talk, of course

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it.  Plants do it, too, but often with the help of animals.

Here are some of the most glorious pictures of sex you’ll ever see, filmed by Louie Schwartzberg.  Anyone who has ever tried to take a good photograph should marvel at these shots, and the skill and artistry and luck it took to get them:

What will we do if the bees vanish?

The lowdown:

http://www.ted.com Pollination: it’s vital to life on Earth, but largely unseen by the human eye. Filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg [of Moving Art] shows us the intricate world of pollen and pollinators with gorgeous high-speed images from his film “Wings of Life,” inspired by the vanishing of one of nature’s primary pollinators, the honeybee.

Glories of Glacier N.P.

Seven-plus minutes of good reason to get your tail to Glacier National Park as soon as you can.

Produced and shot by Joshua Thompson, this is part of an award-winning film made to promote the park and get money for the research that the park hosts.

Grizzly Bears, Bighorn Sheep, spectacular sunsets and more…..

Part 3 of the recently shot Glacier DVD. This 20 min. film recently was nominated for best new nature documentary in the music category as well received an award for photography from the Wildlife Film Festival held in May of 2008. All funds for this project are being donated to the Glacier National Park Fund. For more info: http://www.glaciernationalparkfund.org/cart.php?page=glacier_national_park_fu…

I’ve been there only once.  A wise American would get there before turning 35, and return several times.