Who said birds don‘t smile? A recurve-billed bushbird has been photographed after being absent for about 40 years. Its habitat in Columbia, the forest, is under constant threat and much of it has been cut down over the past half century.

• Smiling Bird

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Speaking of plastic…

It seems that a container ship of rubber ducks was lost in the Pacific Ocean 15 years ago, and the floating remnants are headed toward a holiday this year on the coasts of Great Britain.

• Rubber Ducks

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Raw horse. Interesting. It seems that overfishing of tuna has reduced the catch that the Japanese market can buy, thus raising prices and motivating them to start offering other things at the sushi table, such as smoked deer and raw horse. Naturally, as the human food system goes global, and everyone tries to live at the same level as Americans and Europeans, the things we eat will have to be carefully managed, or vanish.

• Raw Horse

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It has been interesting to see people reacting to global warming and the increasing prices of oil and gas. It‘s almost like the energy crisis of the 1970s never happened. Of course, that was political, but still, it changed life a little bit when you could only buy gas on certain days of the week, depending on your license plate number. Lots of people became enthused about conservation, and people could immediately see the use of cars (read Japanese), that got lots of miles per gallon.

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Yes folks, this has been going on for quite a while. Many entire mountain tops have been completely removed, and it sure leaves a lasting legacy for the surviving environment. It looks ugly, and the streams and rivers in the area that is left become overwhelmed with mud and runoff to such an extent that, if they aren‘t buried, they become non-potable. Many trees have been cut down, many habitats have been destroyed, and people are being faced with the prospect of property and houses that are unlivable.

• I Love Mountains

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As difficult as it is to believe, the plastics industry still hasn‘t really modernized. Much of the plastic that is made today, including the plastic bags at supermarkets and the ubiquitous plastic water bottle, either end up in a landfill, or in the ocean. This is very unfortunate, as it would not be that difficult to introduce plastics that biodegrade quickly, plastics that are not a chemical danger to the environment, to living beings such as amphibians and humans. Yes, those little markings at the bottom of many plastic containers imply they are recyclable, but it really isn‘t the case, as the plastic can only be reused for non-food related containers. Even used a second time for another purpose, this type of plastic will not biodegrade. They will photo-degrade for possibly 500 years or more, breaking down into individual molecules that generally are not used as food by living organisms. As for the chemicals used in the plastics, there is a growing body of evidence that some are hormone-mimicking, and are wreaking havoc on the reproductive systems of many living things, including humans. Read about San Francisco below, and more about plastics in some of the more recent blog entries below.

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This is the sort of human-made thing of which nightmares are made. Imagine, a floating miasma of plastic garbage as far as the eye can see…

• North Pacific Subtropical Gyre Trash Landfill

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Some scientists have found a scenario that explains the curious shore-like features visible on the surface of Mars. Wow, some exciting explanations for the mare on my Mars map!

• Mars

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Some birds are having a very hard time these days. Why? Loss of habitat is one very good reason. What can you do about it? Change your last century idea of what a nice yard is all about. Make it an intelligent environment, nature friendly, and bird-nurturing. Plant trees and flowers that feed the birds. My favorite quote from the CNN article summarizing the Audubon Society‘s report on the health of the American bird population is that people need to reform their “perfectly manicured, sterile back yard“.

• Vanishing Birds

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Scientists have found evidence that it‘s all in the family, when it comes to plant relations. Their results imply that two plants get along much better in a single pot, if they both have the same mother. I don‘t imagine it always works out, as they have to split all of the food and water resources between them, whereas non-sibling plants would duke it out for dominance. The point is, respect the plant! They keep turning out to be more sophisticated than we ever imagined, and more civil than a lot of us can claim to be.

• Plant Families

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