Going to try for a king salmon tomorrow and damn i love living in Alaska??

Anyways i'm going to spend the rest of the evening turning this hole in the ground I made into something exciting, prepare your guesses now

Why did I think it was a good idea to read my course evals? Especially for intro bio 😬

one thing i have realized taking a class this summer is that i have completely forgotten how to be a student 🙃

Well, I haven't *completely* forgotten what I'm doing lol

Me with most things: this is how I do it, but other people do it this way. Try a few things and see what works best for you :) Me prepping a study skin: you use *what* type of cotton?? And you dare call yourself a museum ornithologist

🧵 Public science in the US has taken some heavy hits over the last year, but the White House OMB is proposing a series of changes that will result in a TKO for science as we know it unless we fight back. Here's what's happening, and why it matters. 1/n

There's a guy on FB complaining his tshirt design didn't win for the Fairbanks Golden Heart Festival and uhh, idk how to tell you this my man but while I don't know for sure your design is genAI, it looks enough like it might be that I can see why the organizers didn't consider it 😬

Question for the bird nerds. I know of species that call in places (swamps) or times (pre-dawn) that we rarely survey, so our detections are unreliable: I’m after equivalent examples for ‘conditions’—eg, birds that call after heavy rain or when it’s windy—conditions that we often avoid for surveys

hello are you interested in reading a blog about current events? if yes then consider reading my post about... why people go birdwatching at landfills ryanmandelbirder.substack.com/p/why-would-...

Abstracts for the Global #eDNA conference at due this Friday! Get yours in, y`all! Early bird registrations also go until the end of July. Come on up!

As a trans PI I really just fundamentally expect I will never receive federal funding under this administration?

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

Damn I love biology so much?!?

The only word I can come I p with here is "depraved", holy fuck

Lolsob when their flight on Tuesday got canceled, it was supposedly rebooked, but apparently Concur and Aleutian Airways didn't actually have their software talking to each other somehow so the students' names never made it on to the manifest?

hey @alaskasnewssource.com you have a typo

So possibly one of my three students is coming back from St Paul today? Possibly 2? Either the airline or Concur has done something bizarre and I have no idea who I am supposed to pick up at the airport this evening?

AH

📢 REMINDER: IBIS SPECIAL ISSUE Collections-Based Ornithological Research in a Changing World If you use avian natural history collections in your research, then this Special Issue is for you! onlinelibrary.wiley.... ⏰ Submission deadline: 30 June 2026 #ornithology

"Break the spell" NO IT JUST MEANS THE SPELL IT CASTS IS THAT THE READER IS INHABITING THE WORLD OF A DIFFERENT TIME PERIOD, SOMETHING MANY PEOPLE IN FACT SEEK OUT AND ENJOY YOU ABSOLUTE LOSERS

Somewhere in my house is my wallet. Infuriatingly, there are far too many possibilities on exactly *where*.

The taxidermied javelina in the window of the store next to my favorite coffee shop

The ice cream maker continues to be a great investment Crabapple-mojito sherbet

Problems on an Army base in Lawton, Oklahoma? Sill issue.

It's actually for the best you can't go drink from the springs anymore, water isn't supposed to be that color to begin with and that's before we get to the E. coli issue.

Female birds with confusing names.

friendly reminder that it's always a good time to tell someone you enjoyed their book! (this message brought to you today by chatting with a cyclist while I was birding and realizing I'd listened to the audio version of his book on octopuses, which led to some delightful conversation)

$440/600 for Aleksei's laptop! I managed to find and order a discounted model last night, we are so grateful for your help clawing our way out of this hole and to the finish line of our PhDs. PayPal.me/thelionmachine

lol, sure, go after the incredibly popular artist who is basically giving you free publicity while doing great work for the causes your brand supposedly supports, see how that's gonna go for you 🙃

People really need to get over seeing this brand, with its millions of dollars of military contracts, as progressive. It's got good marketing that markets to progressive people, it makes some nice stuff, but their brand of conscious capitalism is always going to do things like this.

My summer at this point is - submit papers - submit grant proposals - prep a bunch of birds for the teaching collection before ornithology starts ...I love my job but I can see why my family doesn't understand it in the slightest

Got a real Socks of Theseus thing going on rn

Wikimedia Foundation just fired a long time lead developer of MediaWiki as well as its entire community team for unionizing. If you’re a donor, email [email protected] to protest this move. medium.com/@jakeorlowit...

*nods in Alaskan*

Mobile game ads that cut off the audio of whatever you're actually listening to, or just autoplay audio at full blast even when you've forbidden the game itself from making any sort of noise in your presence 🙃

For those keeping track, that puts me at at least 13 edible species in my yard: - apple - red raspberry - golden raspberry* - black currant* - red currant - saskatoon* - haskap* - strawberry* - fiddlehead - kiwi* - birch - gooseberry* - watermelon berry (*planted by me)

“We see your DM’s” I’ve been having a 3 year conversation with a white woman from Wisconsin about pickles

More foraging finds in my yard! Fresh fiddleheads that smell more cucumber-y than cucumber, and some watermelonberry plants

Well guess the students are out on the island for at least another day 🙃

Here's one of the things that really gets me about the plague of enormous trucks: the people driving them want it both ways. They want to drive their murder tank, but *also* they don't want to change their behavior and still act like it's a normal-sized vehicle.

This is not some random asshole saying, "I don't want to see Black people on screen." It is a man who has literally, personally, murdered hundreds of thousands of Black people. His attack on Nyong'o is part of his genocide, and is meant to advance his genocide.

I know it's a silly thing to feel slightly sad about, but as someone whose favorite Midwestern road trip snack was a Steak'n'Shake orange creamsicle shake with an order of cheesy fries, I am forever bummed out by how they decided to fully embrace being the official fast food of MAHA?

If you're interested in Alaska and Arctic climate monitoring and analysis but not Substack, the Alaska and Arctic Climate newsletter is now on Beehiiv. As always, completely free. Subscribe to receive posts by email or just visit the website: alaska-arctic-climate.beehiiv.com #akwx #Arctic #Climate

CHUNK

I also got a metal sink for cheap this weekend so I need to get some 2x4s to make my fish-cleaning table this week! Also in the plans: a small smokehouse

It's absolutely gorgeous out today and I think it's time to hit the lake for the first fishing of the year!

This is a good point, I think. We have a progress Pride flag in the window and various stickers and signs inside and we put it on our website. Virtue signalling is good! Getting the customers you actually want is good!

Assigned Media just got screwed over by SquareSpace not allowing them to take their subscribers with them when they switched to a new platform. Having been there before, I know how aggressively this sucks! Please consider helping them out by subscribing today (I did!).

#Booksky Sale ends tomorrow morning! Get a great deal on our books and support our authors and us!