Now with "Spillcam"

Related:

Gulf oil spill: 'Top kill' procedure begins

Live feeds from remotely operated vehicles

Snowy

White bird in an orange tree.

This albino House Sparrow has been in and around the yard since May 12. In the photos her eyes look black — after looking at her through binoculars I'd say those eyes are very dark red. I think she's quite beautiful.

She does stand out, though. I hope some predator doesn't finish her off before she's had a chance to enjoy a bit of the world, if House Sparrows can be said to do such a thing.

Rose Red on the left, Snow White on the right, with sparrow and finch kids in between. Click for big.

Related:

Plumage variations: Albinism or Leucism?

Leucistic birds, from Stokes Birding Blog

White albino swallow sets twitchers a-flutter

Albinism in birds

Love your mother

Snowy Plover, by Jim Urbach for Audubon. [Click for big, and get the screensaver here.] In its report Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Ten Animals at Risk, National Geographic writes that the Snowy Plover "has been identified by the National Audubon Society as one of the species most vulnerable to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Snowy plovers risk not only direct contact with the oil but might also be poisoned by eating small invertebrates and oysters tainted with oil."

Updates on the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico:
Workers on Oil Rig Recall a Terrible Night of Blasts

BP suffers setback in attempts to stem Gulf of Mexico oil flow. “I wouldn’t say it has failed yet,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, said at a news conference in Robert, La. “What we attempted to do last night hasn’t worked.”

Learning to Love the Sea, Then Torn From It. The Gulf oil spill "has stalled, and possibly ruined, the livelihoods of thousands."

Regulator Deferred to Oil Industry on Rig Safety

Gulf Coast Fishermen Fear That They Will Be Left With 'Crippled Industry'

Sabotage! Conspiracy! And Other Ways to Spin the Oil Spill. I laugh to keep from crying.


Happy Mother's Day!

"The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is seen from a helicopter." Photo by Rick Loomis for the Los Angeles Times.

International Migratory Bird Day

Above: Cerulean Warbler, Rufous Hummingbird, American Redstart. Below left: Wood Duck, American Oystercatcher, Puffin, Whooping Crane. All by Robert Petty for EFTA's Bird Day 2010.

Truth be told: every day is bird day here in Southern California. OK, every day is [or should be] bird day everywhere, but especially here. From the mountains to the sea [as a SoCal news icon used to say each evening] there are beautiful local birds and cool migratory birds everywhere you look.

International Migratory Bird Day "highlights and celebrates the migration of nearly 350 species of migratory birds between nesting habitats in North America and non-breeding grounds in Latin America, Mexico, and the Caribbean," and to quote from the essay Coming together to protect birds, "IMBD is not only a day to foster appreciation for wild birds and to celebrate and support migratory bird conservation; it is also is a call to action." We celebrate Bird Day [every day] by working toward:

• Protecting and managing green space.

• Landscaping with native plants in backyards and parks.

• Adopting architecture and lighting systems that reduce collisions.

• Making our communities hospitable to breeding, wintering and migrating birds that seek safe places to spend time and find food.

"Birds can save the world," writes Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell:

[B]irds represent our most accessible and sensitive indicator of environmental health and ecological change. Today, thanks especially to the Internet, individual citizens have unprecedented opportunities to provide real data that answer important questions about bird populations at continental scales. Humans literally are beginning to serve as worldwide biosphere sensors. The question is, do we also have the will to self-correct? Birds present us with numerous motivations to do so, and an excellent barometer for measuring our successes and failures.

The real data Dr. Fitzpatrick is talking about can be viewed and explored at eBird, which is quite possibly the coolest data-gathering program of all time [and I'm not just saying that because I'm one of this year's top 100 eBirders in my county. Though I am]. To see just one example of eBird's citizen scientists at work, check out the eBird Gulf Coast Oil Spill Bird Tracker. The gadget displays recent sightings of ten focal species — data provided by a dedicated army of eBirders, citizen scientists providing "a real-time snapshot of the region’s birdlife, helping conservationists and researchers understand where, when, and how many of each species are currently occurring on local beaches and wetlands."

Wild birds embody the wonder and beauty of nature, its mystery and its miracles. The challenges wild birds face are challenges that sooner or later will confront us all. We owe it to ourselves, if not to the life of the skies, to celebrate Bird Day as if our future depended on it — because odds are, it does.

Related:
George Divoky's Planet. "This is a story about global warming and a scientist named George Divoky, who studies a colony of Arctic seabirds on a remote barrier island off the northern coast of Alaska. I mention all this at the start because a reader might like to come to the point, and what could be more urgent than the very health and durability of this planet we call Earth? However, before George can pursue his inquiry into worldwide climate change; before he can puzzle out the connections between a bunch of penguinesque birds on a flat, snow-covered, icebound island and the escalating threat of droughts, floods and rising global temperatures, he must first mount a defense -- his only defense in this frozen, godforsaken place -- against the possibility of being consumed, down to the last toenail, by a polar bear while he sleeps. He must first build a fence." A hands-down, must-read classic, even more important now than when it was first published back in 2002.

Media helicopters force Gulf birds to abandon nests. Holy crap, news people.

The know-how and materials already exist. We need to do the right thing

Efforts under way to douse nighttime lights on downtown Cleveland skyscrapers, saving millions of migrating songbirds


H/T to Mike McDowell for the JSOnline link.

Family portraits

Click on the images to embiggen.

These photos are quite wonderful. From China Hush:

This is a “Family Portrait” of China’s 56 ethnic groups. Chen Haiwen, a photographer, recently lead a team of 14 photographers to create a book entitled, “Harmonious China: A Sketch of China’s 56 Ethnicities.” The team spent one year traveling all over China to complete the project. They ended up taking over 5.7 million photographs.

Visit this site to see the large versions. H/T: Nag on the Lake.

News Flash

Click for big.

Climate change is [hello, Congress] still real. California's essential water/politics blogger Emily Green reported this week that 255 of the country’s leading scientists, including 11 Nobel laureates, are doing what they can to get the message across:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Read:
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE INTEGRITY OF SCIENCE [pdf]
Lead Letter Published in Science magazine, May 7, 2010
From 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences

In related news, California has some of the greediest and most dangerous initiative-pushers on earth. Rule by initiative is the first two or three thousand reasons my poor state is in such bad shape these days.


Image above: Carbon Dioxide Concentration [screen grab] from NASA's Global Climate Change website.

What I want:

Leitfaden project, by designers Monika Jakubek and Anna Müller.

And on the left, why I want it. Awesome Paintbox Quilt by the most excellent blogger [and author] at Oh, Fransson!, where you can also find instructions and much more cool stuff for quilters.


H/T: Pratt// Liam Jeff Rubio.