anonsally

[anonsally]

Happy World Penguin Day (tomorrow)! 🐧

Dive into the wonderfully-winged world of African penguins with the Aquarium’s own aviculturist, Kim! From rocky shores to sandy beaches, explore where these charismatic birds call home. 💙🪨🏠

#penguins

[anonsally]

Ursula made a new video! The endless patience of Beatrice and Benedick’s friends is a wonder.

#nmtd #on one hand 100 duck-sized horses is a lot #on the other hand 1 horse-sized duck is terrifying #so #i'm not sure but i lean toward 100 duck-sized horses #also bea and ben you're both ridiculous

[anonsally]

knitting tutorial made by a twenty-something knitting influencer: 18 min long, 12 of those minutes being the intro and a sponsor plug, they show the first few steps of the tutorial at the slowest speed known to man, they show the most important steps at a neck-break speed, they stop every five seconds to talk about what they just did, 40,000 comments filled with questions ranging from insightful to “how do i knit”, filmed with a camera that costs more than a car, the tutorial is incorrect.

knitting tutorial made by a seventy-something grandmother: two min long, filmed 17 years ago, shows you what you want with the skilled patient hands of a beloved deity, made with the world’s shittiest camera, the best video on the fucking internet, four comments and 30 views, you lose the video and never find it again.

#bookbinding #SeaLemonDIY #queue

[anonsally]

Shakespeare Fun Fact

#shakespeare #this made me giggle

[anonsally]

Sunday's bird walk

Since a calliope hummingbird had been spotted on a trail not too far from my house, and I've never seen one, I thought I would give it a shot; even if I didn't find it, it was worth looking just so I could be outside and see some wildflowers on the warmest sunniest day I've had lately.

In the end I didn't find it (or if I did, I didn't get a good enough look to know I'd found it!). But I saw a pygmy nuthatch industriously pecking at a crack in a tree (top row), lots of wildflowers (row 2), and many hummingbirds, only one of which I even attempted to photograph, without much success (row 3).

Indeed, the hummingbirds were very active. I witnessed several high-speed chases, got dive-bombed a few times until I took shelter under a tree, and spotted what I'm reasonably sure were my first rufous hummingbirds (based on Merlin's sound ID and the fact that they seemed purely orange with no noticeable green on the back, though admittedly I was far enough away and they were moving fast enough that I might be wrong about that). I ran into another birder at the spot where the calliope hummingbird had been seen, but we didn't have any luck seeing it--there were some Anna's hummingbirds around, and we saw a hummingbird in the distance, but even with my binoculars I couldn't be sure what it was, and it was zipping around too much to get a photo.

I also saw many lizards, 2 very shy golden-crowned sparrows bathing in a small stream, which was very cute, a spotted towhee (and heard several more), and a couple of Steller's jays. And I heard lots of wrentits.

#personal #birdwatching #photography

[anonsally]

Saturday's Epic Bird Walk

On Saturday I went to small park/recreation area where I hadn't gone birding before, even though it's not far from my house at all.

There's a small artificial lake there, and bald eagles have been spotted there in the past few months. A few minutes after I arrived, a couple stopped to ask me if I'd seen the eagles, and I said I wasn't sure where to look, so they pointed me in the general direction but said they only saw them about once every couple weeks. I told them I didn't think I would be lucky enough to see a bald eagle on my first try.

I knew there was a trail circling the perimeter of the lake; people like to fish there. But I was surprised to find an upper trail on the west side of the park, which climbs a bit above the level of the water and is much less busy (that is, there are fewer people, but more wildlife!). I didn't even know it was there. I admired the wildflowers and enjoyed the birdsong, trying to spot the birds I was hearing. I noticed a turkey vulture soaring in the distance. Then I turned back in the direction I was walking and spotted, perched high up in a tall conifer ahead of me, an enormous bird. It was a bald eagle! Very exciting! I managed to get a couple decent photos of it. This was only my second sighting since using eBird, and my first ever in California.

Not long after that, as I proceeded on the trail, I heard some rustling in the underbrush, which I at first thought must be a bird or squirrel. But then the rustling seemed like it had to be coming from something a little larger. I was looking to try to identify where it was, when suddenly a fox ran across the trail and disappeared into the understory on the other side! I didn't even know we had foxes around here!

I later heard what Merlin claimed was a black-headed grosbeak! It took me a while to spot it, but it appeared to be a female/immature (all (terrible) photos in row 2). This was only my second time seeing this species, and my first time in California; the first time I saw it was actually on the same hike in Oregon where I saw bald eagles.

Other highlights, not all of which I managed to photograph, included a Steller's jay I could report as the coastal subspecies (top row, next to the bald eagle photo), some sort of domestic duck (row 3) which I admired but didn't bother to report, a green heron (bottom row), 2 Wilson's warblers (I don't see those very often), several black phoebes, an immature black-crowned night heron, double-crested cormorants, a killdeer, a band-tailed pigeon, and pied-billed grebes (one of which was vocalising a lot).

A few people stopped to ask me if I'd seen the eagle, so I was pleased to be able to say yes!

#personal #birdwatching #photography

[anonsally]

Some recent bird and blossom photos

Top row: red breasted nuthatch peeking out of its nest cavity; Bewick's wren on a thorny tree

Row 2: foliage in the golden hour

Row 3: two bad photos of yellow-rumped warblers. (in the photo on the right, the bird is extremely faint and blurry in the background, but you can still make out its yellow chin or armpit and white eyering)

Row 4: white blossoms on a tree, a proud house finch, and pink blossoms on a different tree

#birdwatching #photography

[anonsally]

My camera hates western bluebirds: a photo essay

For a bird that tends to perch cooperatively in a way that might lead one to feel confident about getting a good photo, western bluebirds seem to evade my camera's auto-focus. On the rare occasions when it gets the focus right, the lighting doesn't cooperate. (I'm still struggling a bit with adjusting the setting for different lighting conditions. I should probably just learn how to use the manual settings.) These photos are from 3 different days.

#birdwatching #photography

[anonsally]

Highlights from no-equipment birdwatching in Germany

I didn't bring any birding equipment on my recent trip to Germany. However, I did still see some birds I could identify.

The first day and a half were spent at the home of my in-law-in-laws in Mainz. Their apartment is a few storeys above ground level, so one can see into the tree canopy out the windows, plus they have a bird feeder on their balcony. While there, I saw common wood-pigeons, rose-ringed parakeets (there's an established population descended from escaped/released pets, despite the cold winters), a carrion crow, a great tit, a Eurasian blue tit, Eurasian blackbirds, and European goldfinches. None of these were new to me, but since we don't have them in California, they're all kind of exciting to see.

The second day and a half were spent at the home of my father-in-law. In his backyard, I spotted several of the same birds, plus a Eurasian magpie. And the funeral reception was held at a golf course/country club with a pond that was home to Egyptian geese (my first in a place where they have become naturalised, so they are finally on my life list, even though this is a bird I've seen in two other geographical areas--in Italy last summer and in Southern California last month) and grey herons.

I had a 6-hour layover in Munich. I didn't see any noteworthy birds in the city (though the tulips and the hail were certainly noteworthy!), but while taxiing to and from the gate, I did spot what must have been Eurasian kestrels from the window of the plane. Based on shape, behavior, and habitat, I'm certain of that ID, but I wish I'd had binoculars to get a good look at them--that's a new one on my life list.

#personal #travel #birdwatching

[anonsally]

Hero’s done a video! Check it out now!

#nmtd #i just love these cuties so much!

[anonsally]

Dogberry and Verges have a new video!

#nmtd

[anonsally]

Solar Eclipse Shadows

These solar eclipse shadows form due to the distance between the sun and the leaves on the trees. The distance and the proximity of the leaves to one another cause for a "lensing" type effect, making the eclipse shadow clearer to the human eye.

#eclipses #queue

[anonsally]

Overpacking Report

I didn't have a chance to post about this trip before I went on it, but that doesn't let me off the hook from posting an overpacking report! I must remain vigilant to avoid repeating the Great Sock Overpacking Incident of 2015!

On short notice, I took a 4-night trip (including the overnight flight out) to Germany for a funeral. [This was not my loss as I never knew the deceased; I was there to support Wife and her family.] It was pretty cold and intermittently wet there during my stay, but I did really well on the not overpacking front. I brought but did not use:

one pair of socks

a silk thermal top

a couple of PT tools

I did slightly underpack, in that I wished I'd brought my binoculars or camera. I was expecting the weather to preclude any opportunities for birding, but I'd forgotten that I could do some birding through the window both at Father-in-law's house and at the home of my in-law-in-laws. Ah well.

#personal #travel anxiety

[anonsally]

Quick survey how old are you and do you care about your wedding like is it actually that serious for you

#52 #and i was engaged for about 5 weeks before the wedding #which was 7 yrs ago #we got married at city hall with very little planning #about 20 guests max #most of whom were local #everything was somewhat ad hoc #that is definitely the way to go #then we had a picnic to celebrate it a few months later with more guests #including more people coming from further away #but still not huge

[anonsally]

last year i was eating in a fancy, large restaurant when i began to hear a rumble and the distant sound of people chanting ‘potassium, potassium’ and suddenly hundreds of people dressed as bananas flood this restaurant chanting potassium over and over and we were trapped there for a very long time because the bananas would not leave and they were everywhere

i wasn’t joking

#bananas #!!! #queue

[anonsally]

If I ask nicely will people reblog this and tell me what their most common breakfast is? Not your favorite necessarily, just what you have for breakfast most frequently? 🙏🏽

#bowl of cheerios with milk #with dried cranberries and brazil nuts and fresh strawberries and/or blueberries #food #even though there is no picture of food here

[anonsally]

Remedios Varo era uma artista que não apenas fazia arte, mas fazia arte sobre fazer arte. Seus personagens estão com frequência, como os do quadro Harmonia, ocupados com suas criações sejam elas quadros, tecidos ou música. Quer entender melhor a tela Harmonia e as crenças místicas de Remedios Varo? É só clicar aqui.

.

Harmony (1956), by Remedios Varo.

#remedios varo #art #surreal