When it gets really cold bluebirds roost together in a pile using collective body heat to help them survive. They arrange themselves so they don’t smother & alternate positions within the pile. Photo by Wildlife Rehabilitators of North Carolina (WRNC). Thank you Van Harris for sharing this. 🐦 #birds

#Boston skyline this evening, with Route 2 and Spy Pond in the foreground. Gorgeous clear sky.

A friend who teaches theology shared with me a post about CS Lewis's Mere Christianity, which discusses foundational Christian logic across denominations. It reminded me of Dale's tweet below, and I wanted to share some thoughts here regarding modesty and respectability, which are often hot topics.

props to WSJ for once on a useful notion, ADMIN PARTY for everybody

A key difference between Trek and Wars that can get lost easily. One is submarines, the other is fighter jets.

Old-growth grasslands still exist in the eastern US! Two orgs in this article are searching them out, documenting them, and harvesting seed. These important bio hotspots are overlooked compared to forests. (And I've gone on a bio hunt with Devin - good guy.) #nativeplants Gift link: wapo.st/49Rtfzu

Why do our neighbors in Nova Scotia send a Christmas tree to Boston each year? This tradition was born from a terrible tragedy in Halifax 107 years ago today, on December 6, 1917. 🧵

With the aurora popping up again last night, I thought I'd repost this adventure from last year. I drew this when the great @nepeteaa.bsky.social wondered what night-migrating songbirds might make of it all. Part 1/2

So sad this keeps getting shared with the attribution cropped out.

instead of saying this was good strategy, maybe senate dems should say: "the republicans were going to kill people by starving them to death, and because we aren't monsters, we decided to let this fight go. We'll keep fighting. Stop electing monsters."

This is exactly what we need. I've seen the same in small-town Mississippi: no serious challengers in winnable races, no serious Dem party support, no ground game at all. Step up. If you want change - and who doesn't at this point? - get a group together and just do the thing!

Birb with a golden crown👑 #bird #animal #birdart #animalart #illustration #digitalart #decorative

Arrowwood viburnum (V. dentatum) and dwarf fothergilla (F. gardenii) in perfect fall color this morning against a red brick wall. While the fothergilla's bright yellow and peach are delicious, today I'm really drawn to the lime greens and magentas in the viburnum. #nativeplants 🌱

WOW. 81% of women 18-29 voted for Mamdani, 80% for Sherril, and 78% for Spanberger. Gen Z women aren't playing around.

These parrots are an unmitigated delight, and this conservation program has had amazing success with them. Consider supporting them! (USA donors don't get the cute plushie, thanks, fascists). "...adoptions do not entitle you to ownership of the birds" 😂

Aerial photo of Boston, with Fresh Pond in the midground and Concord Ave in Belmont in the foreground. Looks like we're at or just past peak fall color.

Cannot deny - the law is surely injured and sickened by ICE's actions, as well as tested. (From WaPo this morning)

Zohran Mamdani caught lying that he understood Plato’s allegory of the cave, yet when asked to explain it, he seemed to instead explain Baudrillard’s theory of Simulacra and Simulation where reality has been replaced by symbols and signs, which seems similar to Plato’s theory but is not the same

If you, like me, are watching Hurricane #Melissa tonight and prefer to think about the nerdy aspects of weather data (instead of the human catastrophe Jamaica is facing), this site is great. Looking now at data from the *current* flight into the heart of the storm. www.tropicaltidbits.com/recon/

you see vc guys crowing about how with ai "anyone can write a novel!" speaking as someone who has in fact written a novel (not a very good one), this speaks to a familiar misunderstanding of the difficulty of the creative process--in particular, how much conception there is in execution

the symbolism of “Trump destroying the White House for a overpriced luxury vanity project, during a government shut down, days after a historically-large mass demonstration against his regime called “No Kings”’ would be rightly viewed as laying it on a little thick if it was in a work of fiction

Lexington Battle Green was packed this morning to hear Sen. Markey, Bill McKibben, poet Regie Gibson, and others. Site of the first #NoKings protest (1775 edition). Let's keep making history.

😍 Boston, you are beautiful. #NoKings

Did the Bostonians on here know about the Market Basket song? You need to know about the Market Basket song. www.wbur.org/news/2025/10...

This show provided some of the most durable memories of my early childhood. I even met Bob McGrath when I was four or five (and have an autographed photo somewhere). Such a pleasure to watch clips as an adult - the heart in the writing and acting is so clear to see.

Sourwood, Oxydendrum arboreum, with its blazing red foliage and yellow racimes of capsules is one of the most spectacular autumn trees in the southern Appalachians. It also makes wondeful honey. More at Our Trees.

A pilot out in Nova Scotia seems to have had some fun yesterday. www.flightaware.com/live/flight/...

The world is still mostly a dumpster fire, but at least the Israeli hostages are home. I'm unspeakably thankful for that. Honestly, I was pessimistic about it right through tonight - kept expecting it to fail, somehow, some way. But they're really home. ❤️

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

From MIT's president: "In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education." Compact rejected. Good.

The “compact” for higher ed is an unserious document written by unserious people from a position of spectacular ignorance. No one should take it seriously. Sadly, my bosses are taking it seriously. newrepublic.com/article/2013...

If U.S. states have any degree of sovereignty, if there’s any states’ rights at all, it is the right not to be invaded by the armed forces of another U.S. state.

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet. After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

super cool study found human artifacts in Bearded vulture nests, incl. "weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot....a shoe made from twigs and grass is ~675-years-old." link to paper: doi.org/10.1002/ecy..... www.popsci.com/environment/... 🧪🌍🦉

Chilling words. And prescient.

This is... more tempting than I want to admit.

This. Is. Political. Violence. We have to end ICE and aggressively prosecute all the agents who attack unarmed people without provocation.

Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

Perennial sunflowers and switchgrass in our local park. Might be Helianthus strumosus, but dang these are hard to tell apart. #nativeplants 🌱

outside the detention/“processing” facility in broadview, illinois: a crowd of protesters, some of whom showed up before 5 am, is heckling ice agents arriving to work. a few minutes ago, special response team agents came out to push protesters away from the driveway. pepper balls already flying.

For the record. My posts were not even about Kirk directly, but about America's apathy towards political violence, and the coddling of white male shooters and hate peddlers. I was fired because I mentioned race: white men and violence-- that was my "gross misconduct."

The Washington Post fired Karen Attiah today. Is this post the reason? CK was a blatant racist who facilitated harassment and violence against people he didn't like. Quotes like this should be DOMINATING public media in this moment. @washingtonpost.com lost an important voice today. For shame.

Pink turtlehead (probably Chelone obliqua) and cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) blooming at the Acton Arboretum this weekend, in a magnificent color clash. Note the bumble butt sticking out of the turtlehead.

Sedation dentistry is no longer weird. Phone cameras are really good. The price of solar panels has dropped by tens of thousands. Southern white rhinos, giant pandas, Arabian oryx and Stellar sea lions are no longer endangered. And, I can testify, modern cancer treatments are fucking amazing.

This is a Melissa Hortman appreciation account for the next 24 hours.

Love when my political movement requires me to renounce maybe the most beloved novel in American history

Pretty much this.

We have forgotten all the ways people used to get toxins out of their food before federal regulation. It's not that food and water used to be cleaner -- it's that domestic work used to include detoxing everything we put in our mouths!

Ironweed and goldenrod, a perfect late-summer combination for insect support.

If you’ve ever worried whether art matters. It does.