Weekend birds: Blue Jay and Peregrine Falcon (eating a... pigeon?) #birds

Some highlights from the 90th Boonton Christmas Bird Count #birds

From this year's Christmas Bird Count (12/14/2025): Our route is usually nearly all cemeteries with no ponds; this year we covered Lincoln Park in Jersey City and got to see more species than usual; here's a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron hanging out by the edge of a mostly-frozen pond. #birds

Piping Plover, a little after sunrise, Jersey Shore. It's sporting leg bands, which are difficult to see as the bird's floofed up on a chilly morning #birds #shorebirds #PipingPlover

Specimens from Phantom Flowers, one of two books published in 1864 on the art of producing skeleton leaves. More in our latest post from @eayers0: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/phantom-flowers

Ms. Mim of the dining room table

Milo’s too big for cat beds so we got him a dog bed instead #caturday #catsky #catsofbluesky

Seaside Sparrow #birds (Cook's Beach, Cape May County, May 2025)

It's flying lobster season #HummingbirdClearwingMoth

Milo appreciation post #Cats #CatsofBluesky #Catsky

Bees in the bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) #nativeplants

In-progress rock tumble; a soothing break from *everything else*

Crested Caracaras, Sarasota County, FL #birds #CrestedCaracara

In case you need yet another reason to hate AI nonsense:

Welp, I did it, I wrote a piece for @therevelator.org on the proposed funding cuts to the Bird Banding Lab & Breeding Bird Survey and what they would mean for bird research & conservation in the U.S. Definitely a different sort of writing than I usually do. 🪶 therevelator.org/trump-vs-bir...

Gulf coast shells and other beach finds from Captiva, FL

Well this hit hard already but I've just learned that Douglas McCarthy was a birder: "Dad and I were twitchers, I had my Young Ornithologists Club enamel badge, and we would get up super early, go out, cut samphire on the mudflats of Canvey Island, and go home."

So Florida Scrub Jays are pretty great #birds #FloridaScrubJay

A surprise Black-billed Cuckoo seen while kayaking the Rockaway River. I've only seen this species one other time... it did that very cuckoo thing where you've spotted it and it hunches over and just moves a little but somehow disappears completely (what is with them!?) #birds #blackbilledcuckoo

Yellow-breasted Chat, South Cape May Meadows #birds

Shorebirds on the Delaware Bay #birds #shorebirds

Saw some shorebirds! Delaware Bay, NJ #birds #RedKnot

Fluorescent minerals from Franklin, NJ (ID'd as best I can) #minerals #fluorescent

No kings, only kinglets #birds

Purple Sandpiper, Barnegat Lighthouse State Park #birds

It was cloudy but there were some breaks #LunarEclipse

Winter falcons: They seem to be eating well (evidenced by full crops and victims' feathers scattered below them). They have some sort of agreement to never sit on the same branch though! #birds

Harbor Seal cuteness, Barnegat Inlet, NJ

The weekend shift: Black Vultures gathered on the roof of a pebbled building in a corporate park #birds

It's Friday afternoon and that means Mona's on WFMU so something is good in the world www.wfmu.org/playlists/sh...

I finished up hourly comics (two days later, of course of course), and posted them all on my website: www.shaynamarchese.com/hourly-comic... (and the rest here ↓) #HourlyComics #HourlyComicsDay2025

#HourlyComics #HourlyComicsDay2025

This will probably be 80% cats but, well. #HourlyComicsDay #HourlyComicsDay2025

This morning I did some (sonic) winter birding in MN's 200 mile Sax-Zim Bog, on @wfmu.bsky.social, filling in for the lovely folk show, Everybody's Songs. 2hr set featuring: Gray Owl & Chickadee chirps, Québécoise folk, Thai mouth organs, "Zithertronics," and more 🌱 www.wfmu.org/playlists/sh...

I swear these turkeys literally waited for the walk sign! #statenisland #birds #birding #birdsseenin2025 #animalintelligence This is Hylan Boulevard, one of the island’s busiest thoroughfares!

They make the best little twinkling sounds as they flutter about eating all the seeds #AmericanTreeSparrow #birds

A Barred Owl in the swamp. The owl's right eye (not really visible here) appears injured but the owl's been seen around the area for several years--it's amazing what birds can survive. #birds #BarredOwl

Our Christmas Bird Count is finished and I'm starting to wade through data. The recent celebrity Painted Bunting stuck around to be counted and I'm happy to report we saw an Eastern Phoebe in one of the cemetery spots on my route (Hudson and Bergen Counties, NJ). #birds #ChristmasBirdCount #CBC

We are heading out on our Christmas Bird Count tomorrow. My section’s pretty low key but there are several rarities in the circle that I am very much hoping stay another day… yes I am glued to the alert list #birds

Reading @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social’s Absolution and yes even the chapter titles are great

🤘COMMON NIGHTHAWK🤘

Astrid, couch marshmallow

Measurable rain!

Both of these Peregrine Falcons really have the disapproving glare down. New Jersey, March 2024 #birds

Take some time for self care today. Have a bit of cake, kiss a kitty, dip a biscuit in your tea, punch a fascist.

Trying out white ink on these Black Vultures because why not… I think I like the one without the grays better. #birds

Big groups of shorebirds are such a joy to see. Here are some Sanderlings taking flight in Wildwood, NJ #birds

Comparing my neighbors lawn to mine and it looks like one of those satellite images of North and South Korea at night

A Peregrine Falcon cutting through a flock of Tree Swallows… it took a moment but the swallows made a hasty retreat and the falcon had to look elsewhere for lunch. #birds