Coots on a golf course… Now there's a recipe for miscommunications. Coot: *territorial clicking sound* Golfer: "Huh, I swear I heard someone over there hit a ball, but I don't see anyone." Golfer: *hits ball* Coot: "Who's that over there?!" #birdies 🐦

Great Backyard #Bird Count weekend continues... By the time I stopped somewhere to count birds, the light was poor for photographing them, but an incoming flock of Ringed Plovers was a highlight (no, not quite in my backyard, but the GBBC can be conducted anywhere!) 🐦 www.birdcount.org

A sad Heron story for our times. #HeronHeroes 1/2 🧵

Relatedly: It was hilarious one time watching the automated closed captioning trying to self-censor during a webinar about the Paridae. Among the species discussed were "blue ticks," "great tips," "willow tickets," and "Siberian tents." The seventh word you can't say on TV, eh?

Well that was unexpected! 🇰🇿

No Valentine's Day date? Here's an alternative activity for your weekend: the Great Backyard #Bird Count! Who knows, you might get to see a pair of great tits bouncing around right outside your house [*] 🐦 [*] Result more likely in Europe than puritanical America. www.birdcount.org

When it's the first day of the Great Backyard #Bird Count but instead you spend the morning going to the optometrist to fish out that contact lens that wound up stuck in your eye all night... 👁️ 🐦

In honour of #DarwinDay here is a finch eating stuff 🐦 Wherever you are, I hope you have had the opportunity today - and every day, for that matter - to enjoy some of nature's endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful.

Traveller and I recently tested a new bank account by adopting another #spoonbill from Werkgroep Lepelaar - and so can you! 🐦 werkgroeplepelaar.org/over-ons/#he...

Oh FFS 🙄 Apparently, in the UK, "Regulations state that certain terms can be used only to denote the actual products they describe, such as milk, wine and olive oil." Remember that before you buy a tin of Spotted Dick. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Heron photos and articles from NASA are one thing, but it's strangely unsettling to watch a post about one's idiosyncratic lifestyle choices go viral. I must say that I did not expect that, having shared the same "Stars Without Cars" blog last year to little uptake. Enough about me; back to herons.

Continuing on the topic of the spiritual value of gazing into dark and star-filled skies...

Some people let their geographical locations be dictated by jobs or careers, others by family, others by love, others by stasis. Me, I'm hopelessly addicted to living a car-free, active-transportation-based life away from the city and light pollution. carfreebirdnoticer.substack.com/p/introducin...

It was a very special occasion several years ago - the first time I visited Alderney, in fact - that I *just happened* to walk by as the cloud of gannets was descending on its rock for a new breeding season. The press and the birders had yet to arrive on the scene; it was my own spectacle to behold.

It is hard to make friends when you're somewhere that you don't speak the language. It is even harder to make friends when you're somewhere that you do speak the language, because then you are constantly reminded how boring so many conversations are, and you think, "Why the hell bother."

Wild caught! Wow, I don’t recall ever seeing these breaded beauties on Jacques Cousteau, Nat Geo, or Animal Planet.

"Step 1: Decide where you will watch #birds." Egad. *If* I can make it past that difficult first step, I will participate in the Great Backyard #Bird Count this weekend -- and so can you: www.birdcount.org/participate/ Who will I see where this year...? 🤔

"Serbian tennis player suffers head injury after colliding with glass partition" See, this could have been prevented with Feather Friendly, SEEN Elements, Acopian BirdSavers, etc. sportstar.thehindu.com/tennis/dusan...

Good job, Winnipeg 🇨🇦 🐦 www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I'm pleased to say that I wouldn't've even known it was #SuperbOwlSunday if it weren't for a few US bird orgs I follow. I'm rather less pleased with Siri's ability to find owls in my photo archives 🤔🦉

If we can mark glass windows to prevent people from walking into them when they attempt to reach the wine they see on the other side, then why can't we mark glass windows to prevent birds from flying into them when they attempt to reach the foliage they see reflected on or through the glass? 🤔 1/2

The judging of the Herons' Choice Awards commences.

It's important to me that you remember how weird and cool birds are.

For something different for #WorldWetlandsDay, how about some anthozoans and tunicates from Sark's Gouliot Caves - designated as a @ramsar.org site in 2007 (i.e. one year before Sark became a democracy) 🇨🇶

I guess this is old news - as in, over 13.5 billion years old - but some perspective... science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

Traveller Heron wishes a very happy #WorldWetlandsDay to all their wetland friends out there! 🐦

The attention received by my “Why Birds?” post makes me wonder if I should've added some self-marketing 🤔 I do administrative work. HMU if your group or organisation is doing good things for birds but could use someone organised, reliable, and on top of things to help run it (conditions may apply).

Much of what is said in this Substack essay applies to why I advocate for insects.

Humans have transformed the world from the ancestral environments of our feathered friends. When birds respond to their modern anthropogenic environments in ways that appear like a death drive, we owe it to them to learn about their point of view – why do they actually behave as they do?

Why have I adopted #bird conservation as my focal cause? I could just say "I like birds" but I wrote more words (in my mostly dormant personal blog). On birds, but also on staying motivated when one lives itinerantly, enjoys learning, thinks about ethics, etc. open.substack.com/pub/carfreeb...

I haven't really been into hiking with my heavy camera/lens for like the entire past month. Here is a picture of a herring gull.

The true Heroneer's journey never ends. 🍷

Just when you think you’ve tried every #heron wine there is…

Logged onto ChatGPT for some reason and saw this in my chat history - I'm guessing it was something that Traveller did. And who the heck is Cuban Reddish Egret?

Pretty much every business email from people in Ohio: "I hope you're staying warm!" Me: "I am; thanks for checking."

Panelist: "Consider two contrasting cases. In the first, a guest reads your birdwatching field notes. In the second, the guest reads your journal about your private dreams..." Me: "So the book where I write about seeing Grey Herons versus the one where I write about seeing White Bellied Herons?"

This is a picture of Oystercatchers 🐦

Yep. One of the top reasons that I could never be happy in the US even if it weren't an autocratic police state (although my favourite places of all are those where cars are also not permitted as guests).

Wow, NOT a great showing for #BigGardenBirdwatch: 2 Robins, 1 Blackbird, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Wood Pigeon & a pair of Great Tits (teehee). Successes: • It didn't rain. • I didn't need a pee break despite having just had coffee. • It was an excuse to do nothing but listen to robins sing for an hour. 🪶

"Now look, look, look, look... look at his tower of stone! I see a rainbow rising! Look there, at the horizon!" 🤘🏳️‍🌈🇬🇬

Well, I s'pose this one makes *a little* more sense to be going "viral" since it at least has a Blackbird drinking water from a brick... Big Garden Birdwatch today or bust!

Waiting for an acceptable window of weather for #BigGardenBirdwatch after a wet and windy start of the weekend with Storm Ingrid. I must say that not as many garden #bird friends have been stopping by my wintering site this year. Not even this Blackbird stayed for long... :( 🪶

Although the importance of #connectivity is commonly associated with the needs of large mammals, Foreman himself pointed out that the first wildlife corridors to receive protection in the U.S. were #flyways for migratory #birds.

The #heron (Fiskehejre) waiting in Stege Havn that one time Traveller and I sold all our furniture, turned in the keys to our apartment, and ran off on a one-way ticket, first destination Møn - as one does. #DanskFuglUge 🇩🇰🐦

Well, that's a nice memory. I was forest bathing in Anholt (Vesterlandet - the part where there are actually trees), enjoying the near total absence of sensory pollution, and this Grønsisken showed up and hung out with me. #DanskFuglUge 🇩🇰🐦

Dansk fugl uge! 🇩🇰 🐦 From the first time I visited Denmark, one of many things that impressed me (being from the US) was how accepting people are of the human body. On that note, here are some great tits (a.k.a. musvitter). #birds #fugle

Bluesky got an E. "When we visit a website, we rarely think about the environmental impact. But there is a high cost, from the energy consumed as the information makes its way from the data centre to your computer or smartphone, to the water used to cool servers." www.euronews.com/green/2026/0...

Dansk fugl uge! 🇩🇰 🐦 Today is selection from a recent visit to Denmark, when I felt like a break from cycling/hiking too much with my heavy camera. Luckily birds are never too far away! Fiskehejre (Kolding) Landsvale (Nordby, Fanø) Gransanger (Tunø) Gransanger (Tranebjerg, Samsø) #birds #fugle

Nope, totally NO CLUE why this would go "viral" 🤔 Anyhow, hello world. I'm a philosopher who ditched traditional academia to work as a kind of academia-bureaucracy liaison. It's fun enough, but it doesn't do anything for birds, and I am committed to find a way to work for the good for birds 🐦 1/3

It'd been a minute since I last promised someone to write something, but somehow I made four writing offers last Dec. I have now submitted four of four, so time to decide what next... I wasn't really planning to get back into writing; it just kinda happened. I will possibly continue. Possibly.