In case you’re wondering if Portland is burning, see www.isportlandburning.com for live camera views and something from a bygone ere: facts.

I wrote a small thing about a group of people working together to do big things.

Happening now in war ravaged Portland: the city's Parks and Recreation Department (the most subversive of all government entities, is giving away trees.

Taken just a few minutes ago outside the ICE facility in Portland that Trump claims is under siege. My message to Donald Trump is this: we don’t need you here. Stay the hell out of our city.

Sat, 9/27 in “war-ravaged” Portland. I’m stacking firewood & where the husband works today, @oregonsymphony.bsky.social performing Tchaikovsky & Strauss at the Schnitz & Lion King is going full swing at the Keller. Most of #pdx focused on yardwork & last sun before grey & rain. Knitting likely.

Rough-skin newts are pretty cute, but they come equipped with a neurological poison that packs a punch — a handy protective trait for snack-shaped animals. in #mthoodnationalforest www.instagram.com/reel/DPFeJKr...

How's a girl supposed to get any work done when there's a team of scientists exploring a shipwreck in Uruguay with a robot? www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCEo...

¡Qué lindo! Every bit of this south wall in the #MarDelPlataCanyon is vibrant and alive. Read and imagine how a tiny sponge larva or other stationary animal finds a home in a place like this: www.instagram.com/reel/DN37jxs...

Winston runs a tight ship.

“Now the sea is in me: I am the fish, the fish glitters in me; we are risen, tangled together, certain to fall back to the sea.” fr Mary Oliver’s, “The Fish,” about catching & eating her first one. ROV pilots filmed this amazing fish more than 2400m deep in #MarDelPlataCanyon #TaludContinental_IV

it is 2025 who the fuck would believe consuming raw milk is sa… oh right

For everyone paying attention to earthquake & tsunami info, a lot of funding for tsunami & earthquake monitoring comes from NOAA, but the fed gov is cutting their funding. Call your legislators, tell them to fund NOAA & USGS, who in turn funds regional network operators, like AK Earthquake Center

Sometimes workweeks are filled with hard things, but at the end of this one I now have a favorite shark.

I was sent into the Lum Farm store to buy eggs, and I came out with yarn. This happens. Now, my Orcas Island blanket is well underway! I’m a sucker for natural, sheep-colored fiber, and it’s a treat to get it directly from the source. #orcasisland #lumfarm #knitting

I spend my work days imagining myself in a different body, living an entirely different life. It's fun examining how we perceive & make sense of our world & exploring how that might differ if I were a tiny squishy being. #writinglife #oceanworld #scicomm

A breathtaking poem by @mkdordiggsy.bsky.social gwarlingo.com/2021/conifer... “Let’s grow fathers from pine, not oak, coniferous fathers raising us in their shade, fathers soft enough to bend—fathers who love us like their fathers couldn’t.”

Read and reading while gardening, supervised by Winston.

🎶… I get by with a little help from my friends…”🎶 Remoras & rays have a mutualistic relationship, meaning both animals benefit from each other. We hope you find some good friends to hang with this weekend! 🌊 #VentUnderworld, 101m Read more: www.instagram.com/reel/DLsgK10...

"The reserves ARE working!" "There is a bit of magic in there, that's for certain" "The no take zone is literally overflowing with marine life" Let's keep fighting for MPAs and reserves of various types, including those connected together in networks #OceanChat 🌊🦑

I’m not entirely comfortable with how much of my mental health is tied up in whether or not this one individual albatross continues to breed. #OceanChat www.allaboutbirds.org/news/wisdom-...

#oceanchat community: Attenborough said 3% of. 🌊protected. I was looking for this number yesterday and came up with 8% in several sources. What say the experts? How much of the ocean is protected today? 🌊

This part is inspiring We know how to protect nature! Protect the animals, protect their habitat, protect their food -- make sure people support it -- and they bounce back (I've never seen a blue whale -- it's on the bucket list) #oceanchat

Attenborough’s message of resilience is worth paying attention to. I hope people hear it — for seabirds and mammals, and all the wonder that’s lives in our ocean. #OceanChat

Watching footage of trawlers in Antarctica, scooping up the “foundation of an entire ecosystem” really gives one the sense that humans are incredibly dumb and mucking about with total avarice. #oceanchat

A krillion crustacean! 🌊 #oceanChat youtube.com/shorts/HzXlw...

"Modern colonialism at sea" The global map of this is astounding cc @gettinfishypod.bsky.social #OceanChat 🌊🦑

Uhg. I just got to Attenborough’s trawling footage. I spend most days writing about these delicate, beautiful animals — some that take hundreds to thousands of years to grow. I’m weeping. #oceanchat youtube.com/shorts/BpQcj...

"Ocean plankton removing almost a third of our carbon emissions, and providing more oxygen than all the trees on earth combined or half of the air we breathe." More specifically, **over geological time scales,** the ocean has provided a large fraction of the oxygen we take in today. #OceanChat 🌊🦑

I’m a super fan for sea otters and the role they play in kelp ecosystems. In Oregon, @elakhaalliance.bsky.social is working to restore otters and our kelp forests. #OceanChat

I love that Attenborough starts with seamounts in the high seas! #oceanchat storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/3ef9...

Making friends while writing about nature with like-minded souls, what a week! 💚

Fan girl moment! Lili Taylor visited the Orion Environmental Writers’ workshop yesterday for a discussion w/lit legend Fiona McCrae (28 years leading Greywolf Publishing). It was a trifecta of perfection — writing craft, nature, and favorite actress. 💚 #orionmagazine #writinglife

Feeling grateful to be participating in Orion Magazine’s environmental writers’ workshop in NY. Everyone is wonderfully nerdy — comparing our plant and animal apps, gushing over favorite reads, and grieving for the natural world we write about. Indeed, we have our work cut out for us.

Funny, the husband thinks my knitting is witchcraft. Now, I can tell him I'm relying on the laws of physics (and, perhaps, a smidgen of dark arts). 🧶 www.scientificamerican.com/article/knit...

A sea star, despite a friendly-sounding name, is a carnivore that envelops prey—expelling a cardiac stomach from the center of its body to engulf & dissolve its meal into a gastric soup. Read full caption & @echinoblog.bsky.social paper on sea star predation here: www.instagram.com/reel/DKcp9OB...

💫 #SEPacificSeamounts Galaxy siphonophore! As human animals, the solid ground under our 2 feet is our connection to Spaceship Earth. For creatures in the edgeless realm of Earth's inner space, the midwater, communal organisms divvy labor for survival. Read more: www.instagram.com/reel/DKAGibb...

1. Oregon checkerbloom + possible orange-belted bumblebee (Bombus ternarius) 2. Oregon checkerbloom (Sidalcea organa) 3. Broadleaf stonecrop 4. Snail shell, for rent 5. Almost peony 6. Goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus var. acuminatus) 7. Western blue-eyed grass (distinction bellum) 8. Our practice pond

🔗 Quick reminder that unlike most platforms, Bluesky doesn’t algorithmically penalize posts with links! So if you are posting some striking image or screenshot from elsewhere you don’t need to bury the link in a reply; just include it in your post so everyone will have the context right away.

I planted one 1-gallon Nootka rose two years ago, and I now have a 14ft high thorny wall blocking the view of my neighbors who left their RFK signs up far too long, IMHO. I mostly plant for aesthetic reasons, but spite works too.

Viburnum edule’s first spring, planted last fall with Murphy’s ashes. Our sweet shoe-eater has been gone for many years, but couldn’t bury ashes until we bought our first home in 2022 — he would like our garden very much.

Good weeks end in cephalopods. 🐙

Ocean poetry. 🌊

Stop! Take a minute to dance like a jelly! This disco dancer was observed during the #SEPacificSeamounts expedition. Researchers characterized the biogeography of ten seamounts along these ridges. Data collected here inform management plans for existing protected areas in Chile’s jurisdiction.

A Japanese digging knife (favorite tool!!!) comes with the added bonus that I completely forget what a lunatic I must look, in my front yard, staring at some future version of my garden wielding a murderous looking tool. Maybe perimenopausal gardeners make the best home defense.

A colossal bit of squid news at work today!

I’m loving “How Far the Light Reaches” — the author weaves well-researched essays on ten sea creatures with memoir. Their descriptions of the animals and places make me want to dance like a yeti crab ( #iykyk ). #OceanRead

The Democratic Party must become an anti-establishment party ready to fight the moneyed interests and shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans. This is the Lesson of the 2024 election.

Excited to see blossoms appearing on the natives we planted three years ago. They sleep, creep, then leap! These early bloomers are critical for hungry critters waking up from a long winter. Ribes sanguineum & Berberis aquifolium

Are you a scientist studying whales, birds, bats or other wildlife? Journalists like me need to hear from you now more than ever. Here’s some advice for how to do that from some of the most media savvy conservation scientists out there (aka your colleagues!) 👇

Read @lizneeley.bsky.social’s newsletter — “stay focused not flooded.” buttondown.com/liminalcreat...