Scenes from last night’s Aurora (Townsend, MA) Pink and purple pillars at the absolute peak of intensity. I could see it still going from bed just before midnight but decided I wasn’t gearing up again 😴. We’ll see if tonight has more in store! #northernlights #auroraborealis

Possibly the luckiest frame I could imagine... two bright meteors flashed overhead right in the middle of my 2 second exposure. Right around 8:58pm EST, my yard in Townsend, MA. #auroraborealis #northernlights 🌃

Cape May Kestrels from October. I "only" saw 130 #AmericanKestrel at the #hawkwatch so they took a bit of a back seat to the other small raptors. Still a thrill. Yes, they were all going left! 😁 #birding 🦅🪶

Ya like Merlins? Well no surprise, Cape May has them too. I saw over 200 #Merlin in my 3 days last month at the Cape May (NJ) #hawkwatch. (Official count was over 600.) In my notes, I wrote down that I saw 8 (!) individual birds in a single scan at one point. #birding #nature 🪶🦅😎

Flying Squirrel Loves It Every Time

Good one for the @thebirdist.bsky.social - I noticed the trailer for HAMNET has a hawk (YES!) but it's a Harris's Hawk. A common bird in modern #Falconry, but native to the southwest US. In Elizabethan-era England, the chances of this bird being used in Falconry, I'm guessing, is zero! #birding

The Cape May NJ #hawkwatch is an amazing site for hawks. However I always 'just missed' the big flights...until now! From Oct 15-17, I caught a huge surge of Cooper's Hawk, Sharpie, Kestrel & Merlin migration. Personally, I saw ~500 Coops in 3 days. Official count was 1,700+ Coops. 🤯🪶 #birding

Getting that first Roughie of the year is always a good feeling. This light morph #RoughLeggedHawk flew by the Cape May #Hawkwatch on October 15th, probably a little early compared to your average winter migrant. 🦅❄️🪶 #birding

Vultures of Mt Watatic #Hawkwatch (MA). September doesn’t have many migrating Turkey Vulture but we see LOTS of locals soaring over the summit’s thermal or cruising updrafts. This year we hit a record 14 Black Vulture, our highest count ever, including 7 at once! #turkeyvulture #blackvulture 🦅🪶🌎

Merlins of September at Mt. Watatic #Hawkwatch (MA). One of my favorite parts of the watch is the last hour. Day hikers have wrapped up their visits and the summit empties out. Low sun makes for great lighting. And for whatever reason, #Merlin seem to be late day migrants in the East. #birding 🪶🦅😎✌️

American Kestrels migrating past Mt Watatic #Hawkwatch (MA) this September. A couple brave birds landed on the summit this fall, likely to pick off one of the Carolina Locusts that inhabit the rocky outcrops. This Sept we counted 108 migrants. Always love to see them! #AmericanKestrel #birding 🪶🦅😎✌️

Next up the round out the buteos, Red-shouldered Hawks at Watatic #Hawkwatch (MA) in September were sporadic migrants and mostly noisy locals. Several juveniles came in close enough for pics, including a couple visits to the decoy owl. #redshoulderedhawk #birding 🪶🦅

Red-tailed Hawks from Mt. Watatic (MA) in September. This species doesn’t migrate here until later in the fall, so we mostly get to see juvenile local birds hunting the surrounding slopes. Some of the close shots here are from a run in with the decoy owl. #redtailedhawk #hawkwatch #birding 🪶🦅✌️😎

Bald Eagles have always seemed to deliver in my time as counter at Mt. Watatic (MA). We see many locals and plenty of migrants often w/nice close looks. And it’s always a good chance to study the various plumages of immature birds. This year’s count in September was 118 #baldeagle. 🦅🪶 #birding

Ptarmigan stickers are up! www.etsy.com/listing/1502... #awebo #awebobird #ptarmigan

Sharpie time! It’s always fun to get close looks at #sharpshinnedhawk - they have such personality and are so dynamic during migration at Mt Watatic (MA). We had a respectable count for the #hawkwatch season with 308. Some of my fave frames here! #birding 🪶🦅

A few Cooper’s Hawk frames from this season at Mt. Watatic (MA) #hawkwatch. Not quite as many #coopershawk as last season, but still 66 in September. They typically peak in October so of course we miss a good deal of them. #birding 🪶🦅

A look at my favorite Broad-wing photos from this Fall at Mt. Watatic (MA). By mid-October, most #broadwingedhawk have already left the US, heading south. It was a delight (and relief) to see thousands of them again at our #hawkwatch site after <1K last year. Total count : 3,624! #birding 🦅🪶

Annual reminder of the best sale in bird books! Not many new titles since last year but there’s a few I’m excited to finally get. press.princeton.edu/sale/70-off

Twinsies! 🦅🦅 These 2 juvenile #BaldEagle passed by my #hawkwatch site (Mt. Watatic, MA) this weekend, and both struck an identical pose on the way by! Note the variation in plumage between individuals at this age... identical ages but far from the same patterns of color. Neat! #birding 🪶

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

It's September. Let's get the #hawkwatch going! Very soon, we’ll be in the peak #BroadwingedHawk migration window in Mass, with a chance to see big flights of migrating hawks. Consider this an invite to join us at the summit of Mount Watatic in the coming weeks! (1/3) #birding 🪶🦅

*slams it down* I finished it My article About AI use, impacts, etc, with lots and lots of links It's uh Really long

Look, I for sure don't have time for all of #AvianAugust but I had to make an exception for the 'Io, one of the cutest birds in existence, so here is a very quick sketch! #BirdArt #SciArt 🎨🪶

Eastern Mass Hawk Watch T-Shirt Campaign Week 1 was so inspiring, thank you to all who have supported us! There's just a few more days to order to make sure you have your shirts before Fall Migration kicks in. 🦅🪶💚 #hawkwatch #birding bonfire.com/emhw

When a group of hungry young #RedTailedHawk are close, they will let you know it ! This fresh fledge was making a huge racket that drew me out of the house with my camera. Got a few nice frames as they buzzed our yard, chasing after their parent! #birding 🪶🦅😎✌️

Kicking off a T-shirt fundraiser for our local #hawkwatch club, Eastern Mass Hawk Watch. EMHW raises money to power local+regional raptor conservation. I've been President of the club since 2020, and am psyched to share our new logo on this Bonfire campaign.

It's true, #PrehistoricPlanet Ice Age is coming to #AppleTV for November 2025. These images show how good our animals are, but... believe me, this barely scratches the surface!! It has been a massive thrill and privilege to help bring this series together... you're in for an incredible treat.

I have the honor of setting down a few thoughts in words about one of the most important musical figures in my life. May he rest in the knowledge that he gave voice to sentiments many struggle to express.

Last weekend was marked on my calendar as "MOOSE MISSION." The singular goal : see Moose. We headed out to Maine and came back with 5 sightings, including 1 mind-blowing evening with a feeding bull #Moose.

continuing in my HELL YEAH #birdingmeme series, we review the term AGI 😎🪶🦅

My cartoon in this weeks @newyorker.com

We teamed up with @hawkwatch and @hawk_mountain to rank the priority raptor species for conservation action in North American countries. Check out the results in Chapter 5 of State of the World's Raptors. science.peregrinefund.org/state-of-wor...

And some of my favorite forward-facing flybys! 🦅🪶

Some close-up forward-facing raptors for @tinylongwing.bsky.social ! They lose some of the ferocity for sure! 🪶🦅

I made a Herring Gull / Keith Haring joke on Twitter and the famous Kaelin M Warde turned it into a sticker you can preorder now. All proceeds to go the Kindling Collective, a queer-center gear library and education center in Maine! campmustelid.shop/products/kei...

How to tell a Cooper's Hawk from a Sharp-shinned Hawk. An oldie.

In honour of my new baby and in honour of not supposed to be working, over the next few weeks I'm going to post this short story called 'Fledgling' I made for my patreon 2 years ago. This is part 1/14.

Spring Migration is about wrapped up here in Massachusetts. Here's a shout out to the tiny little jewels that make birding so fun around here this time of year. (1/3) #birding 😎🪶 Some regional visitors at local hotspots: #PrairieWarbler #BlueWingedWarbler #CommonYellowthroat #SavannahSparrow

nature is for EVERYONE! 🏳️‍🌈

The allure of #SwallowTailedKite is strong, to say the least. I've had luck seeing them in FL, NC but never New England. Finally had luck on my side and observed a few passes from a lingering pair in Cape Cod. Watching these birds fly is unreal: they’re beyond graceful and effortless. 😎✌️🪶🦅🪁 #birding

Sharing a composite I made for #RaptorID FB group. Center is OP's astur hawk from NV. L: #CoopersHawk from my library/R: #AmericanGoshawk from Macaulay Library. OP wings look a bit broad, but not as long and broad as AGOS. Tail: not broad-based in all frames. Looks big-headed. Verdict: #COHA 😎🦅🪶

Some advanced #RaptorID talk with a friend about using the field mark of streaked undertail coverts when it comes to separating #CoopersHawk and #AmericanGoshawk. Starting w/this OP bird, called AGOS in this checklist, shows a fine streak in UTCs in 2nd pic: ebird.org/checklist/S4... 😎🪶 #birding

had to revisit this meme after the 2024 AOS update #birdingmemes 😎🪶🦉🚜🇺🇸

Here are the US reciprocal tariffs against all the territories mentioned in Enya’s Orinoco Flow

Successful rescue of my chimney visitor! A #BrownHeadedCowbird turned out to be my surprise trespasser yesterday. Happy to be able to get him out today without any damage. Note: Wildlife not handled w/proper permits! 😎🪶

#Merlin will always be outdone by Kestrels at our #hawkwatch site in terms of quantity, but not in terms of excitement. When a counter calls “Merlin!”, everyone’s attention ramps up. These birds blast by with unmatched ferocity. 26 #merlin counted this weekend at Plum Island MA. 😎✌️🦅🪶 #birding

There’s a big #AmericanKestrel day most years at our Plum Island, MA #Hawkwatch site - usually I’m at work, reading a report and cursing. This year, everything lined up and the big AMKE day was a weekend. 357 birds, a top-10 single day count and a season-making experience. Birds rule. 😎🦅✌️🪶 #birding

it was a long winter. #birdingmemes #birding 🦅🪶😎🚀

Red-tailed Hawks may be the most abundant raptor in North America, but they’re also the result of incredible evolutionary dynamics that have woven a tapestry of 16 subspecies across the continent. Learn more: www.allaboutbirds.org/news/red-tai...   #HawkWatch #CommonBirds #RedTailedHawks