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PHOTOGRAPH BY LYNN TOMPKINS
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How animals deal with record-breaking heat: The heatwave in the Pacific Northwest coincided with nesting season, so baby hawks were unable to fly to escape the scorching heat and fires. So they did the only thing they could—fall from their nests. Nearly 50 baby Cooper’s and Swainson’s hawks were rescued from the ground beneath towering pines in Washington and Oregon, Natasha Daly reports (Pictured, five rescued baby hawks in an Oregon wildlife center).
Beware of sharks: Despite a rise in shark bites, beachgoers can become inured to warning signs posted on the shore. That’s prompting the need for more explicit or different messaging, Nat Geo reports. Officials say vacationers fool themselves into thinking it can’t happen to them. Although shark encounters still are extremely rare, and only three of 500 species pose any threat to humans, swimmers and seals share water with the deadlier sharks off the Atlantic and South African coasts.
Related: See how fast shark populations are declining worldwide
Prettier than butterflies: Wildlife conservation photographer Carla Rhodes of Woodstock, New York, has been heading out to her backyard each night, hanging white bedsheet across the porch. Then she puts several blacklights above the sheet and waits for hundreds of moths. Rhodes has been photographing the moths since May for National Moth Week, which runs through Sunday. See the gorgeous creatures from Smithsonian magazine.
East Coast bird mystery: At least a dozen states and D.C. are in the middle of a songbird epidemic. Thousands of blue jays, common grackles, American robins, European starlings, and others have suddenly gone blind, started shaking or stumbling, and died. Scientists are racing to find out why, Natasha Daly writes.
Did you see what washed ashore? A glistening, hundred-pound, 3 ½-foot opah was found beached on northern Oregon’s coast. Officials said the stranding of the apparently healthy fish was extremely unusual. Visitors flocked to Oregon’s Seaside Aquarium to see the body of the huge fish, “a mix of silvery and bright reddish-orange scales, dotted with white spots,” the Washington Post reports.
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