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dendroica

@dendroica@ecoevo.social

Ornithology. Ecology. Taxonomy. Pacific Northwest birding.
Longer-form essays and project updates at https://canterburia.blogspot.com.
I write natural history, fiction (SF and fantasy), and poetry.
My novelette "Pen Pal" recently appeared on the science fiction podcast Escape Pod: listen at https://escapepod.org/2022/10/13/escape-pod-858-pen-pal-part-1/
and
https://escapepod.org/2022/10/20/escape-po
Ongoing project: learning German by translating the ballads of Goethe and Schiller to English!

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

dendroica , to random
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Camped last week at Little Crater Lake, one of my favorite spots in the Cascades. Mid-week the campground was virtually empty, and the open subalpine meadow nearby was the stage for a dozen Common Nighthawks swooping and peenting in the dusk. When night has darkened the forest, the sky remains sourcelessly bright for a span of fifteen minutes, and in silhouette they cut across it on long, long, pointed wings, a smooth aerial dance of moment-to-moment improvisation.

jencmars , (edited ) to random
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My 5 y/o noticed a line of ants marching across the sidewalk leading up to her preschool. Seeing other kids and adults approaching, she laid down on the sidewalk parallel to the ants and stretched her arms over hear head to protect them from careless feet.

#insects #ants

dendroica ,
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@jencmars looking out for the small friends!

dendroica , to random
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Now this is nice! on her floating nest. I was able to keep far enough away to take this photo through the cattails without spooking her.

dendroica , to random
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flew over our house this evening going peent peent peent. Last bird species to arrive in Portland on spring migration, and not always an easy one to find. Officially the start of summer!

dendroica , to random
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Upstairs Downstairs

This birdhouse, purely decorative and unnecessarily duplexed, with openings rather too small for any likely nesting birds, nonetheless turns out to have provided an excellent home for several of sterling character.

A double decker birdhouse, wood well weathered and encrusted with lichen and moss. The lower hole has been painstakingly filled in with brown woven vegetable matter, leaving only a tiny round opening at top center, from which vantage a bumblebee face is peeking out. The top nest box hole remains entirely open, but a second bumblebee also peers out from its bottom rim. Together they appear to have teamed up for purposes of the neighborhood watch.
ALT
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    • + loren
    dendroica , to random
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    Couldn't hurt to post a picture of some more goofy fuzzball dinosaurs.

    dendroica , to random
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    Ooh! Ooh!! nest!

    jencmars , to random
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    The first of a bajillion cicada photos.

    #insects #cicadas #Brood13 #MacroPhotography

    dendroica ,
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    @jencmars I totally forgot they have those three red ocelli dots in the middle of their forehead like some kind of cicada enlightenment chakra marker.

    jencmars , (edited ) to random
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    I hear it's which seems like a good time to re-share this commission art of a lovely black tail bumble bee in her reading room.

    A round painting of a cozy reading room. A black tail bumble bee sits in an oversized turquoise chair, holding a book with two legs and a mug of coffee, her proboscis extended to sip up the contents. There are books, a coffee or teapot, a bowl of candy and a dish on the coffee table. A small flower-patterned tiffany styled lamp is on a side table. Light comes in through a round window, showing late afternoon light and roses. There are candles in the fireplace and dried flowers hanging. A large bookshelf is behind the bee, and over it an ornately framed map. A knitting bag sits on the floor under the window. It's a cozy scene.
    ALT
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    • + loren
    dendroica ,
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    @jencmars still love the zoom-in detail on this one!

    dendroica , to random
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    Scenes from Fernhill Wetlands this afternoon.




    Male Black-headed Grosbeak perched atop a willow, beak wide open in full opera singer mode, letting it all loose in rapturous melody.
    Blurry non ideal photo...Far side of the pond and coyly averting one's gaze... but this long necked elegant black and white waterbird is actually a Clark's Grebe, not the more common Western Grebe. Very thin stripe of black down the back of the neck, and extensive white on the face.
    OMG two Virginia Rails actually came out for me to look at them ! This fellow foraged along the muddy side of the pond. I like the warm tones on back and breast, offset by a black and white barcode on the flank, evidently ready for laser scanning.

    sollat , to random
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    A yellow visitor among the juncos? Looks warblery.

    Video of a patio with two water baths, various plants and a table. A junco bathes in a small water bath. The larger bath has a yellow and grey bird hopping around the lip towards the left, looking cautious. The bird has a slash of bright yellow across the face, near the dark eye.

    dendroica ,
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    @sollat @anniegreens I agree with Wilson's

    loren , to random
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    that's what they called me in college:

    https://mastodon.social/@oldbookillustrations/112436587733794619

    dendroica ,
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    @loren At least a pretty darn good auk, I would think.

    dendroica , to random
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    Since Oregon is missing out on the excitement of this year's periodical emergence, here is a photo from a couple of years ago of one of our non-periodical cicadas, I think a Putnam's cicada (Platypedia putnami). I was able to locate this handsome fellow in a hazel bush by his occasional clicking call and catch him for a closer look.

    dendroica , to random
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    Short Face Long Beak

    I want a bird who's the queen scolopacid,
    I want a bird who knows her niche.
    I want a bird who's hell-bent onward,
    Racing the storm 'cross the Solomon reach.
    I want a bird with the right adaptations,
    Who is fast, and thorough,
    As she probes her mudflats.
    She's been wintering in Auckland,
    She's visiting Pohnpei,
    She's touring coral atolls and their beach habitats.
    I want a bird with a short face
    And a loong beak...

    1/4

    @loren @timdesuyo

    jencmars , to random
    @jencmars@mastodon.art avatar

    Spectacular weather out this morning for the final day of . I saw a lot of tiny wasps and a number of spiders, heard a chorus of frogs, saw many warblers and at least half a dozen garter snakes out.

    A small, early instar spiderling, pale and semi-transparent stands on a criss-crossing of web between two leaves.

    dendroica ,
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    @jencmars what a little jewel of a wasp!

    dendroica , to random
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    Butterbutt borb coming and going.

    And a somewhat blurred head on view, displaying the perfectly circular outline of the classic borb shape. This is a female Audubon's Warbler, with yellowish throat patch and a more subdued gray plumage than the male.

    jencmars , (edited ) to random
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    A little fly that looked more like a grasshopper at a distance. I think this is genus Sepedon. Photo taken in Illinois.

    dendroica ,
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    @jencmars I love the detail and diagonal striping on the compound eye!

    ElleGray , to random
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    this is mars’s moon phobos eclipsing the sun. this is what passes for a total solar eclipse there. second-rate planet. just sad

    dendroica ,
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    @ElleGray Phobos = Fear. Of not living up to the standard set by Luna.

    dendroica , to random
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    This little fellow strayed into the office and had become befuddled by the windowpane, so I gave em a lift outside. A mason bee, I think? I usually don't see them up so close. Theoretically could probably sting, but in fact was completely mellow - I think was rather exhausted from dealing with the window, and sat on my finger preening for a couple of minutes before flying off.

    loren , to random
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    you know who are good birds? teals

    dendroica ,
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    @handmade_ghost @loren

    • C'mon, commit! Dive in!
    • Wigeon not pressure me, please?
    dendroica , to random
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    Our local pair continues to be active around their nest site. This is I believe the male, who is noticeably smaller than the female. He seems to have a bit of small-vertebrate lunch stuck to the side of his beak! The nest is farther along in construction than last week, although I have not seen the female setting on it yet.

    Cooper's Hawk with head turned to right and partially shadowed. There is a bit of debris sticking off the side of the beak, maybe part of lunch
    A bulky stick nest in the branching fork of an Oregon ash tree.

    A Cooper's Hawk perched on a sloping licheny branch, looking toward the camera with one deep red eye illuminated and the other in shadow. The ash-gray throat blends into the complexly barred red and white breast. Below the branch the undersides of the tail feathers are inscribed with loopy black-on-gray scrawls.
    ALT
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    • + loren
    dendroica , to random
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    Cooper's Hawk is building a nest in the riparian patch behind our place!

    Looking up at a still leafless Oregon ash canopy against a blue sky. A Hawk flies in to a nest under construction in a branching fork.

    loren , to random
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    i want a bird with a short face and a loooong beak

    dendroica ,
    @dendroica@ecoevo.social avatar

    @timdesuyo @loren
    She is fast, thorough,
    She's probing mudflats,
    She is foraging on annelids
    Beneath algal mats.

    sollat , to random
    @sollat@masto.ai avatar

    Holy shit.

    If you ever get tired of doomscrolling mastodon and wonder what else you can doomscroll, I present: doomscrolling birds.

    https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species

    dendroica ,
    @dendroica@ecoevo.social avatar

    @sollat plumescrolling

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