In case you need a moment of zen, check out the jellyfish spotted this summer swimming through Venice’s canals in this video. The Anthropause, a period in the Anthropocene during the pandemic when low human activity meant more freedom for wildlife, has created some interesting moments.
Microplastics have been found in the air, the dust in the air, flying insects, and aquatic organisms, but now we are starting to find them in raptors, creating havoc in their digestive tracts as it does with aquatic animals.
Worldwide, the decline of insects is a problem. We often focus on pollinator gardens, but there are many other things we can do, including the reduction of light pollution, which, if unabated, can confuse insects and those that eat them, including bats and birds. Check out this article for more.
It’s no secret the pandemic changed the way we spend our days, but one interesting affect was the rise in backyard bird watching this year. Audubon has created a web site celebrating the attention we have spent on our backyards, their beauty and biodiversity. Sometimes a problem is an opportunity, and this has become a time for some to focus on ourselves and our homes.
People of color have historically (and in recent times) been excluded or made to feel unwelcome in public parks and in public lands.
For six years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I worked for Portland Parks & Recreation in Oregon, and for many of those years, Charles Jordan was our director. He was the first African American city commissioner and parks director for Portland, which is an accomplishment in a city and state that had excluded African Americans from residing there until 1922, and that legacy continues today.
One of his favorite quotes was:
“What people don’t understand, they won’t value; what they don’t value, they won’t protect; and what they don’t protect, they will lose.”
How can we fight environmental issues in our society if critical members are not included in the conversation?
To further illuminate this issue, I found this article enlightening.
Urban areas are important for nighthawks and for many other creatures. As natural habitats dwindle, our backyards, roofs, ponds, puddles, parks and ditches (to name a few) can provide a refuge for wildlife. In many cases we can coexist peacefully with these animals. Increasingly, how we can support urban, suburban and exurban areas is becoming subject of research for ecologists, as evidenced by this story.
We think of this time we are living in as the Anthropocene, an era as earth shattering as entire geologic periods of time, but we have another term now, the Plastocene, the age of plastics. Reducing plastic use can become a full-time obsession, believe me. Researchers have seen microplastics in our water and flying insects that hatch from water. Now there is news that dust in the air carries microplastics.
There are many ways we can help aerial insectivores, the most quickly declining guild of birds, many of which are detailed in this paper, that include:
Have you noticed fewer fireflies these days? Yeah, me, too. There’s a campaign led by the Xerxes Society to save these critters that light up our summer nights.
But, while I have your attention, do you want to learn more about the secret life of fireflies? Check out this article, and learn more about the femme fatales.
It isn’t easy keeping up with a chick that needs to eat its weight in insects everyday, but that’s what my friends at Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital are doing in southern Wisconsin. Check out this video of a rehabilitator at the hospital feeding a nighthawk chick with a mealworm coated in vitamins and other essentials a growing chick would need. Other things nighthawks chick need? A nighthawk buddy, courtesy of Sherman, their resident unreleasable nighthawk, to show them what to look for when they get released.
