Life List: Water Ouzel

also known as the american dipper but fuck that lol. this is a drab grey but real cool bird. they’re the only perching bird (to my knowledge) that has become adept in the water. they swim with their wings (called aquaflying in birds) and clamber on riverbed rocks underwater.

i wish i’d gotten a better look but i only saw them at a distance, while hiking out to see a waterfall in the olympic rain forest. i often ask for people to relate their stories of these birds in comments but i’d especially like stories about these ones.

there’s an idea in zoology that “anatomy is not destiny” – that animals can do things or go places you would not expect of them just based on how they look. the classic example is goats in trees, another is humans swimming. water ouzels do not have webbed toes and look much like any passerine bird, but iirc they do have some subtle evidence of aquatic adaptation – like denser bones? idk.

expertise welcome below…

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Why Will Tvnfp be Assassinated?

Why will presidente tvnfp be assassinated?  Place your bets!  I, of course, do not endorse the assassination of even the worst people in the world.  I may find it understandable that another would want to assassinate them, I would be hard pressed to find it in my heart to condemn such a person, but I do not want to see good people throw away their lives trying to erase bad people.

It’s a challenge, I know.  But disclaimers aside, it is important to try to understand one’s current geopolitical situation with bracing discourse and insightful discussion of the facts and potentials etc etc etc.  That is to say, I find myself pondering one aspect of the potential assassination of orngedolf shitler:  Why?

I will, for now, leave it to others to discuss when, how, who, etc.  The question on my mind is simply this:  Of the myriad possible motives the assassin may possess, which motive will be dearest to their heart?  Why will they assassinate trgkp?

I will consider multiple potential reasons, but before I do, let me just say it’s wild as hell that no matter what evils he does to leftists, a right winger is far more likely to be the triggerman.  They’re just that much more likely to kill somebody, and that much more likely to be a heavily armed and erratic thinker with a poor grasp of the reality of potential consequences of their actions.  If a q-nazi dreams up a reason to do this and makes it happen, well, them’s the breaks.  Stirring that pot to brew up a political base, that was playing with fire.  Tfcnp’s nearly been burned by it already.

Right Wing Reasons

Hate how many Jewish friends he has because u r nazi.
Hate how many Jewish friends he has because u r islamist.
Q was false messiah. Something something pizza something pedo something flat earth something lasers.
Not establishing Gilead fast enough.
Not killing transes fast enough.
Not establishing white ethnostate fast enough.
He realizes gun control will make assassination attempts less likely to succeed and does something good for a change.
Burned by him in a business deal.
To formally inaugurate the teslocracy.

Good Reasons (tho you still shouldn’t)
Swore oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic.
To stabilize the economy.
To save the republican party from nazism.
To save christianity from idolatry.
To fight global warming.
To fight white supremacy.
To help Palestine.
To defend Ukraine.
To defend transgender people.
To avenge the cops his fans killed.
To avenge people who died from covid.
To avenge those killed by right wing terrorists he inspired.
To defend immigrants.
To answer a personal insult (motherfucker insults a lot of people).
To show Q cultists their god is false.
Revenge for his brainwashing previously decent relatives into Q cult fascism.
Life ruined by debt that was about to be forgiven.
Life ruined by losing federal job.
Revenge because he raped the assassin or one of their relatives, on account of he is a rapist that raped people.
To save the US from starting an ultravietnam or two in Mexico or Canada.
To prevent his use of nuclear weapons.
Vengeance for his use of nuclear weapons or to end the ultravietnams he’s already started (i fucken hope not this one).

Did I miss anything? While “swore an oath” could be a military coup, did you know literally every desk jockey in the federal gov has sworn that oath, and a lot of non-federal employees that shouldn’t even have to, like local cops? I wonder if they’ll start changing that oath?

So… Why do you think this trigger is gonna get pulled?

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Life List: Merlin

I’ve seen falcons and possibly other small birds of prey at a distance a number of times, but IDing them?  Forget it.  It’s small.  It’s streaky on belly.  It has lil markies on its lil face.  It could be literally any falcon and if you aren’t 100% sure about the face?  Small hawks too.

Then on March 26th, one killed and ate a Eurasian collared dove on my front lawn, leaving only tawny feathers, blood, and one funky magenta foot.  Lots of people have seen this kind of thing, sometimes more than once, but it’s the only time I’ve seen it.  The bird was pretty bold, which let us get some shitty pictures of it.  Here’s the suspect beside a near identical one from some yewchoob man’s video.  An adult female merlin?

I was surprised the crows, which are not shy about mobbing much larger hawks and eagles, gave this little beast a very wide berth.  Maybe they saw the death blow and it was scary to behold.  I know I’d be freaked out to see a bird dive bombed out of the sky and ripped to pieces alive while still stunned.  Lucky me, I did not have to watch that happen.  I’m confident the victim was taken on the wing tho, because eurasian collared doves pretty much never land in my yard, flying high above it.

The crows were flying rather oddly, which was the first hint I was coming around the corner into a freaky scene.  Part of that may have been the weather; a thunderstorm broke out within a half hour of the kill.  The crows had wings and tail feathers fully fanned, and were floating around all strange.  But it was so weird, right after I saw the little murderer on my lawn, I glanced around for the crows and they were nowhere to be seen.

The tiny monster was so intent on defending its kill that I was able to walk around, try to find my husband, and bring him back.  Then my husband took the pictures and a short video, which is where the stills you see here come from.  To the right here, you can see the great escape.  She finally got annoyed with our shenanigans and flew away with a big chonk of meat.

Vaya sin dios, you funky killing machine.

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Are You the Baddies?

Lil’ question for the scientists and science communicators and defenders of liberty who thought woke moral scolds were impinging so badly on their freedom to be assholes.  Who is censoring the hell out science right now?  Whose side is doing that?  I know, bring up the way your fave race “scientists” could only sometimes get published in mainstream sources, cool cool.  But on this scale?  How about the way they’re gutting universities?  Destroying the Department of Education?  Libraries?  This sound like the work of people who care about academia, enlightenment, the advancement of the human species?  Sophisticated discourse, holding up the hem of your toga as you walk through the agora?  Is this how you saw yourselves?

Are you starting to understand what censorship actually is?  Are you starting to understand how misogyny, transphobia, and racism will always lead into fascism?  How there’s no good and actually cool version of any of those things?  Growing a tiny spark of self-awareness yet?  The clock is ticking.  You’re running out of time to breathe the air of freedom you’ve so stridently clamored for.  Anything you might think say or do that isn’t in support of the party line, better get your freak on while you still can.

Remember those guys painted out of Stalin’s photograph when they became not stalinist enough?  By supporting this situation, you’ve put yourself in a more dangerous position than most.  Does this feel like freedom to you?  Does this look like what you imagined it would, throwing off the shackles of woke?

I’m thinking of Jerry Coyne and Ophelia Benson here.  I’m not gonna host an answer by one of those humanoid tools of fascism, but I wonder vaguely what that would look like.  I wonder if OB feels like this is the dawning of a new feminist paradise, feels completely blameless in the use of transphobia as a wedge issue to establish Gilead.  I wonder if JC feels good about the state of science now, feels completely justified in working to achieve that egregious new normal.

I don’t wonder enough to read their sniveling bootlicking shit, but maybe one of you could summarize it for me in the comments, heh.

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Life List: Greater Sandhill Crane

There’s an idea that famous cryptid The Jersey Devil can be explained by the sighting of a lone crane in the forest.  Sometimes it is depicted as a bird-like thing with the head of a horse.  I believe it’s a coincidence that the young of cranes are called “colts,” but it’s a fun coincidence.  Unlike the other leggy-and-necky birds known as herons and egrets, baby cranes are cute as hell.  I love them.  I also love hideous freak heron babies, but for different reasons.

Another cool mythical association:  Cranes are the mortal enemies of pygmies.  I do believe this myth has fuck-all to do with the various African tribes of short stature.  The pygmies of Greek legend are mythological beings.  In modern times we’re used to creatures like unicorns or centaurs existing as solitary units, discrete icons.  These ones came with a built-in drama in the form an aeternal war with another type of mythological creature.  Because waging war on pygmies is not something real birds do.  That shit’s just weird.  But funny.

I’ve only ever seen cranes when going out of my way to find them.  They are not a part of my life at all.  I went on a big birding road trip with my dad once and saw cranes in a suburb of Portland, Oregon.  I didn’t remember with certainty which crane species they were and had to look them up.  Based on range maps, this had to be the one: greater sandhill crane.  I didn’t get a very good view.  It was using binoculars to see them at a great distance; not too exciting.  Greige beasts with a lil red bit.

But still.  Big-ass birds are the closest thing we get to pterosaurs nowadays, and they are very cool.  Cranes.  Worth going out of your way for.

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RP by Comment 00003

~Previous~ 🏵️ ~Next~

Already some cool kids were planning to indulge in the city’s night life.  The folly of youth.  Meanwhile, the tour continued into a building full of laboratories, where there was little of interest that they were allowed to see.

Josh came back to Ilmardan and Kaldonia.  “Turns out Humuk is too shy to go to clubs.  Still figuring himself out, I think.”  Kaldonia laughed quietly.

It was hard not to want an escape of some kind, a daydream to distract from the dreary reality around them.  The place looked even less interesting than the average high school – more like an office space of buzzing lights and clicking keys.

They came into another courtyard, this one adjacent to a cafeteria and featuring a heavy mechanized gate which would be used for access by utility vehicles in off hours.  It had a smattering of graffiti and a mostly occluded view of people walking by out on the street.

Ms. Selber sorted the large pack of freshmen into two concentric rings for some awkward ice breaking games.  Everyone had to say their name and answer a specified question to the closest person in the other circle, rotate, introduce themselves and answer a different question for the next.

Kaldonia was with Ilmardan for the question of “What’s your major?”

~Previous~ 🏵️ ~Next~

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President Cal Worthington

There used to be a legend among used car salesman, and many of you may have remembered him the instant you saw the title of this post, even if you haven’t thought of him in thirty years.  Cal Worthington was the classic disreputable piece of shit motherfucker in that field, which I can reasonably infer from the fact he got ran out of entire states on rails, for burning too many people.

Or maybe some other crime; I don’t know the whole history of the situation.  I just know that’s not the kind of business that normally involves moving every few years and living out of hotels.

He had memorable commercials.  You can probably remember the jingle if you’re old like me and from one of the states where he ran the operation.  Cowboy hat, exotic animals that would all be referred to as “his dog Spot.”  When he was in Washington his dealership was in the last city I lived in, which he called “Federal Way, the only way.”

Anyway, if we’re gonna have a blatant criminal for prez, whose shenanigans were well-known decades ago, why can’t we dig up that guy?  He’d probably get his face ripped off by a chimpanzee before he wore out his welcome too.

Cal Worthington for president.

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Life List: Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove

Is it kosher to put a zoo animal on your life list?  I’m going to have to if I keep doing a post every other day like this.

I believe this was at the Wichita Zoo in Kansas.  They had an indoor aviary when I visited a like four or five years ago?  Lots of fancy characters in there, and the Luzon bleeding heart dove is not the fanciest.  But he was special, because he had gumption and temerity.  He had gotten into the “airlock” between the aviary proper and (maybe not so) sweet freedom.  One joker leaving the door open a moment too long, and he would have gotten out.

Fortunately this was a fairly spacious antechamber, so the bird man of wichita wasn’t a split second from the door at any given moment.  We all got in without incident.  It was just amusing because this is a pigeon-acting pigeon, strutting around on the ground like any you’d see anywhere in the world, but y’know.  Exotic.

Is Luzon the largest island of the Philippines?  I think so.  Fresh from that very catholic and conservative country to our own crappy bible belt, it’s a humble dove with a splash of red on the chest, like he received some biblical punishment or sacrament.  Mary wept a blood tear on his chest.

Speaking of bleeding hearts, at my condo there is a bleeding heart flower on the back porch that grows ridiculously well.  The soil there looked like a pile of cigarette ashes turning to clay when we got here.  Vile.  Everything hated it.  But this plant, every year dead back to a pile of broken yellow tubes, blows up to be much larger than a man, elegant pink flowers all over it, and looks pretty decent for a long time.  We tried to tame it this year with tomato cages, but who knows if we’ll succeed?  Life… finds a way.

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Primary they Asses

My union talked me into writing to my representatives thru a web form, and the responses have trickled in.  Clearly just had a machine or intern look at the subject matter vaguely and send robo-reply.  On the web form all three required an honorific but the senatorial old ladies only had mr. and mrs.,  while the congressdude had other options.

For the senators I chose mrs. but also used masc legal name.  First senator with a robo reply “corrected” it to mister.  Kinda like, fuck all y’all.

I’ve said before I’m ok with dems taking some bad deals when they’re in the weak position, negotiating however they can to reduce the damage of nazi policies, but if they act at all like they consider a demographic an acceptable loss, or worse, show enthusiasm for nazi ideas like fuckface newsom, we must brutally primary their asses back to whoville.

And if the dem establishment rams a shit candidate through?  I think they’re a few decades overdue for a riot at their convention.

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Life List: White-Crowned Sparrow

I believe I’ve mentioned these guys a few times.  I started paying real attention to birds for the first time around 2006-2008 while living in Seattle.  I started paying real attention to bird calls after that, when being priced out of Seattle landed me in Federal Way, in the company of northern flicker screeches and one distinctive spring song that I came to recognize as the white-crowned sparrow.

Dweeet-dweet-wipwipwipwipwip.  That’s the impression it makes, but there are subtleties and variations, and the call frequently doesn’t make it to the last -wip because they will shut up if they feel nervous or distracted.  Incidentally, lots of animals will do this.  You don’t think of frogs as having an opinion about people, but if they see you looking for them, they will go silent.  A tittering bush full of bushtits, likewise, will shut the hell up if you come close.  It’s uncanny when you can’t even see the animal.  You got closer specifically to find them after hearing their sound, and then the sound stops.

Not as much of a problem with white-crowned sparrows because they’re fairly bold, living in open fields but also the kind of small trees you find in and around parking lots and sidewalks everywhere.  And in mating colors, they’re fairly distinctive – at least by PNW standards.  Strong black and white head stripes, bright yellow beak.  Larger than chickadees, smaller than robins, and they are easy to spot feeding on the ground.  Hello there.

I read once they’re considered crop pests in California.  Don’t care.  Let the birdies feast!  I kid, I kid.  Or do I?  I do.  Unless..?

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