As close as I can figure out, we have four or five pairs of ruby-throated hummingbird nesting around the house, two or three behind the house and two or three in front. Or, there are only two or three pair in all and they use both the front and back feeders. Looking at the size of a female at the feeder hanging from the deck as I type this, I’m astonished at the distance something that size migrates. Since, in my younger days, I’ve been miles out on the open ocean in a 19 foot boat, I think I have a decent sense of relative size to distance traveled.
female ruby-throated hummingbird
Photo by J. Harrington
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I know monarch butterflies also undertake a long migration, but they take several generations to do it in one season, which is also astonishing. Most of the time, unfortunately, I tend to take for granted the wonders in front of me. In part because I don’t get to personally watch the details of those trips, just as I don’t recall my embryonic development, which limits my ability to relate to what goes on in a chrysalis.
Do you suppose the increase in fine particle pollution from Canadian and Western U.S. wildfires will affect birds or butterflies or other critters in more ways than habitat loss? What, if anything, do we know about the effects of PFAS/PFOS on fish, wildlife and invertebrates? I’m pondering these questions after reading several articles on felt wading boots and fly fishers as vectors in spreading aquatic invasive species such as
"rock snot" (Didymosphenia geminata); a gastropod, New Zealand mud snails (Potamopyrgus antipodarum); and particularly out west, whirling disease which is caused by a cnidarian (Myxobolus cerebralis) of the class Myxosporea. Viruses are another potential threat to coldwater streams. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) has garnered the most attention recently but there are other potential viruses that can be considered AIS
The definition of an invasive species usually involves creating some sort of economic or ecological harm to the human species and its environs. Now that we’re in the Anthropocene, haven’t we, by definition, become the only species with negative global impacts? Isn’t there a biblical saying about the qualifications of who should cast the first stone? And shouldn’t we do a better job of remembering that denial is not just a river in Egypt?
Maybe after the current air quality warning ends I’ll be less cranky, if another one doesn’t come along soon.
Prayer for the Mutilated World
By sam sax
what will be left after the last fidgetspinner’s spun its last spinafter the billboards accrue their thicklayer of grit masking advertisementsfor teeth paste & tanqueray ginafter the highways are overtakenby invasive forestsafter the ministers give up their gods& the rabbis their congregationsfor drinkafter new men rise to lead us sheeptoward our shearing, to make bedsheets from our hairafter the high towers have no airplanesto warn away & instead blink purelytoward heaven like childrenwith one red eyeafter phone lines do nothingbut cut the sky into sheet music& our phones are just expensivebricks of metal & glassafter our cloud of photographs collapses& all memories retreat backinto their privatized skullsafter the water taps gasp out their finalblessingwhat then?when even the local militias runout of ammunitionswhen the blast radii have beenchalked & the missiles do all they werebuilt towhen us jews have given up our statefor that much older country of walking& then that even older religion of dirtwhen all have succumbed to illnessinside the church of our gutted pharmacieswhen the seas eat their citieswhen the ground splits like a dresswhen the trash continent in the mid-atlanticat last opens its mouth to spitwhat will be left after we’ve lefti dare not consider itinstead dance with me a momentlate in this last extinctionthat you are reading thismust be enough
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Please be kind to each other while you can.
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