Visiting Florida after what might’ve been my longest absence since I was five. Happy to report that birds are still here. In the desperate work we need to do on climate change, it’s helpful to see our past successes. I never saw ospreys while growing up here. DDT use was one devastating hazard they faced. Now these birds are everywhere! Visiting Scotland, I was happy to learn they are making a slow comeback there as well. Here’s one fishing in sunset light.
Another great success is the delicate snowy egret. They’re feathers were harvested for fashion near the turn of the 20th century leading the snowy and other birds to near extinction. Theodore Roosevelt established the first National Wildlife Refuge in Florida to help protect birds, and that along with efforts to change fashion kept the snowy alive and they’ve made a great comeback. Even by the turn of this century, they were still a bit of a challenge to find, and now they are fairly common. We can learn to change our ways to protect more aspects of the environment.
I doubt the scavenging cormorant was ever too much at risk. This fellow stabbed a meal that was a bit challenging to swallow.
Tropical storms and hurricanes are increasing in number and intensity and lasting later into the year. There’s been a record tying 28 storms this year. Warming temperatures result in the storms maintaining their intensity when they hit land. The sixth hurricane to come ashore in the U.S. this year was Eta. Here are the outer reaches of the storm as it hit several hundred miles away in the Keys and then swung around to come back here.
How about leaving it with some abstracts of pelicans on the shore?
