Settling in

After a week of anxious waiting for Internet re-connection, I’m settling back into my blogging routine.
Scanning the news presents a disconcerting view: Covid-19 has not, as Donald Trump promised,  “disappeared, like a miracle." Humans’ attention toward the pandemic, however, is disappearing. Odd, as infection rates continue to increase. Peru – 622,000 confirmed infections - has replaced South Africa – 620,250 confirmed cases - as the fifth most affected/infected country.
Unsure whether to celebrate South Africa’s status or mourn Peru’s.

News blues…

India’s rate of infection climbs precipitously, just trailing Brazil: 3,467,000 compared to Brazil’s 3,805,000.

India has set a new national record of daily coronavirus infections, reporting more than 77,000 cases in 24 hours, just shy of the global one-day record tally held by America. 
India’s health ministry reported 77, 266 new cases on Friday, taking its total cases to 3.39 million, data from the federal health ministry showed. India also recorded more than 1,000 new deaths taking total fatalities, to 61,529, the fourth highest total in the world, behind the US, Brazil and Mexico.
The country has recorded the highest single-day caseload in the world every day since 7 August. The largest ever one day rise is 78,427, reported by the US on 25 July.

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The Lincoln Project: Chayna  (1:00 min)
Trump Hires the Best  (1:00 min)
Ready  (1:00 min)
VoteVets - Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Must Resign Or Be Fired  (0:55 min)

Healthy futures, anyone?

Here’s an idea for concerned world leaders to emulate. Costa Rica, forward thinking in conservation and sustainability, rewards farmers who carry out sustainable forestry and environmental protection through its PES - payments for ecosystem services program. .

Costa Ricans have powered a mass conservation movement across the tiny Central American country. While most of the world is only just waking up to the importance of trees in battling the climate emergency, Costa Rica is years ahead.
"It is remarkable… In the 1970s and 1980s Costa Rica had one of the highest deforestation rates in Latin America, but it managed to turn that around in a relatively short period of time." 
Costa Rica is the first tropical country to have stopped -  and subsequently reversed - deforestation. …
In the 1940s, 75% of Costa Rica was cloaked in lush rainforests. Then the loggers arrived … and cleared the land to grow crops and raise livestock. It is thought that between a half and a third of forest cover had been destroyed by 1987.
… In1996, [the government] made it illegal to chop down forest without approval from authorities and the following year it introduced PES. Today almost 60% of the land is once again forest. Cloud forests envelop the country's mountain peaks, thick rainforest lines the beaches of the south and dry forest sweeps the northeast. This rich landscape is home to around half a million plant and animal species.

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The bad news? The MV Wakashio oil tanker that struck a coral reef last month in Mauritius was scuttled on Monday. Since then...

At least 40 dolphins have died mysteriously in an area of Mauritius affected by an oil spill from a Japanese boat… …
[A spokesperson] from the Mauritius fisheries ministry said 38 carcasses had washed up on the beaches so far. Autopsy results on 25 dolphins that washed ashore on Wednesday and Thursday were expected in the coming days.
Veterinarians have examined only two of the dolphins, which bore signs of injury but no trace of hydrocarbons in their bodies, according to preliminary autopsy results. The two autopsies were conducted by the government-run Albion Fisheries Research Centre.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Move views of this Hoopoe
scroll down the page.

Signs of spring: yesterday, an African Hoopoe searched the lawn for food. Assume the sparse feathers on her head and neck indicate fraternization with horny male African Hoopoes. (During mating, male birds in the throes of passion, and in an effort to stay aboard, pluck the female bird’s neck feathers.) 

Compare this sleek, unruffled male African Hoopoe. (Courtesy of Birds of Eden  ) 

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The week in wildlife pictures as a reminder to celebrate what’s out there.

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Another red letter day in my quest to settle my mother into a caring care center: visit with the real estate agent recommended by my mother’s lawyer. Since I’ve lived in California for decades and was never invited to participate in selling her former property, it will be, as we Americans say, “a learning experience.”