7 swans a swimming... It's more than a line in a holiday carol. There are exactly 7 swan species, each with their own wild story.

Meet the "other" turkey, the ocellated turkey that struts Mayan ruins.

Hammer Flat. Boise, Idaho.

Boise tonight.

Historic Adelman Mine in the Boise Foothills. Nice hike on a beautiful fall day.

I confess that, as a kid, I checked this book out repeatedly from the school library. It fed my outdoor interests, even if the trap plans are so wildly complicated and impractical. *No animals were harmed after the reading of this book.

#RodentOfTheDay Heunglin's Striped Grass Mouse (Lemniscomys zebra) "[A] species of rodent in the family Muridae. Its natural habitats are moist savanna, subtropical or tropical moist shrubland, arable land, and plantations ." Ph/inf: eol.org/pages/4463012

Should we kill trees because they're ugly? At one point, the National Park Service did just that. Modern conservation is loaded with value judgments.

Two sides to the same sign in rural Idaho.

Introducing Ozzy! This prehensile-tailed porcupine, Zoo Boise's newest resident, is already becoming a star. 🌠 Settling into the renovated Small Animal Kingdom's Rainforest Building, Ozzy likes to nimbly climb and flip around his habitat’s canopy. 📷: Lead zookeeper Taylor S

GAR WEEK 2025 is HERE!!! Join @garlab.bsky.social as we celebrate these awesome living fossil fishes and freshwater biodiversity for #GarWeek! We look forward to hearing from YOU with any gar pics, puns, stories, GARtwork and questions this week!

Only four #taxidermy bluebuck are known in #museums (Paris, Leiden, Stockholm, Vienna): the only large mammal species to become extinct in Africa in recent centuries. Bluebuck disappeared in ~1800. (It feels weird to know I've seen them all - the only physical evidence of what bluebuck looked like)

Meet the Apalachicola redhorse, a newly described fish species.

Latest addition to the backyard flock.

A beautiful fall day and trout taking dry flies. #flyfishing

Black’s Creek Bird Reserve, one of the birding hotspots near Boise, Idaho. Some nice sightings this afternoon including northern shrike, yellow-rumped warbler & tundra swan.

Lampreys definitely fit in the “creepy but cool” category. Bonneville Fish Ladder viewing window, Oregon.

Not much is scarier for a #GreatLakes fish than the invasive sea lamprey, sometimes called vampire fish 🧛 But while they're more trick than treat in their introduced range, they're actually threatened in parts of their native range of the Atlantic coasts of Europe + North America - that's scary!

Capybara, the world's largest rodent. The species has a wide range in South America, but is especially abundant in flooded grasslands like Colombia's Llanos and Brazil's Pantanal. Capybaras roam in herds like ungulates & will all plunge into water when threatened. They are also quite tasty.

Small mountain whitefish. Boise River, Idaho. #flyfishing

My search for black-backed woodpeckers near my Idaho home, one unexpected bright spot after last year's dismal fire season. #birding

Forget the Halloween bats and spiders. Here are the creatures that should really give you the creeps.

The Boise River in autumn.

A male African pygmy goose, a type of perching duck and one of the smallest waterfowl in the world. Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle, Washington #Birds #BirdOfTheDay #Green #SideEye #Ducks #Photography #Birdscrolling #PNW #BirdNerd

Swift fox prove more adaptable than anyone thought. A conservation success story. It doesn't hurt that they're incredibly cute animals.

I recently came across an eastern red bat, chilling in the brush on a warm afternoon. I guess they’re common in PA but I hadn’t seen one up close before.

It's time to celebrate bats: from a species that is as light as a dime to a bat that fishes.

A trip to the Schwartz sturgeon pond in Parma, Idaho. A bizarre facility featured in my book, but also a great time for kids.

Species Spotlight - Flying Squirrels "Unlike their tree-nut favoring cousins, flying squirrels have a surprisingly diverse palette...and readily supplement their diets with insects, bird eggs, or even the newly hatched birds themselves. " www.nps.gov/articles/spe...

When a big Alligator Gar decides it's time to go, it goes! ReGARdless of the video we're trying to shoot 😅 Gars can be good indicators of ecosystem health, specifically aquatic connectivity (e.g. river-floodplain connections) due to their migratory spawning behavior. #GarWeek

Misty morning on the Boise River.

Pine marten

Researchers used public photos posted online and museum collections of mammals to determine that the Chicago Rat Hole was not actually made by a rat (spoiler alert: it was probably a squirrel) www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/s...

#RodentOfTheDay Prairie Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii) "Prairie Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii), a State Special Concern mammal, has been found in sand prairies, dry to dry-mesic prairies, surrogate grasslands, and barrens." Photo/Info: dnr.wi.gov/topic/Endang...

Adding: Fishing through the apocalypse Pests: how humans create animal villains Silent spring Again taking recommendation for related books

Any day roaming the high desert is a good day. Owyhees, Idaho. #publiclands #KeepItPublic

The lowly muskrat could be an unexpected ally in the push against aquatic invasive plants:

It’s getting a bit cold for Great Basin gopher snakes, but found this little one sunning itself on a path yesterday.

When bat is on the menu...for wildlife. Crocodiles that swim through bat guano, gars eating the bat hatch in Houston, raccoons feasting on diseased bats & more.

Good to see Gray’s Sporting Journal covering “roughfish” & native fish conservation, including the work of @solomonrdavid.bsky.social.

Liking lichens.

MeatEater convo reGARding native fish conservation and management went great! Thanks to lots of native fish folks who provided info/comments/support for this SciComm! @dirtydog.bsky.social @buffalo-catcher.bsky.social @matthewlmiller.bsky.social Alec Lackmann, Kayla Kimmel, @garlab.bsky.social

I’m in Bozeman, Montana, to talk native fish conservation with the MeatEater folks! Looking forward to sharing and learning about diverse perspectives regarding stewardship of our natural resources!

My search for the Cassia crossbill, Idaho's endemic bird. It's a bird shaped by an absence of squirrels.

Neighborhood bobcat.

Heydon Bay, British Columbia. A huge thank you to the Guardians of the Wei Wai Kum Nation for hosting me and for your stewardship of this special place.

What IS a gar scientist anyway? @matthewlmiller.bsky.social shares his perspective: blog.nature.org/science/2019...

Yellowtail rockfish.

Dungeness crab.

Yelloweye rockfish, caught in British Columbia.