Hey nerds -- I would be in this cohort except that I have an insane project at work (15 months and counting) that has completely overwhelmed my brain and life. I've worked with Jer on datavis/infographics in the past and he's gonna expand the way you see the world if you sign up. So DO IT already!

Fair warning @woodcreeper.bsky.social, my plan to help Stephanie achieve her next WSoB goal involves us stealing your boat. It's OK, you can still pilot it. You just need to whisper "I'm being kidnapped by bird pirates" as we leave harbor. @birdv.fish and @spiffybirder.bsky.social will back me up.

I just donated $100 to TJA and Muckrock because I love nothing better than to help give this particular administration heartburn.

Lots of incredible transmasc vulnerability on here today and it has really helped to heal something I've been struggling with a lot lately.

If you need a break from your Tuesday menty b, or if you just want to learn more about the weird shit I get up to in my free time, have I got a distraction for you! An whole doc about The Galbatross Project, female bird science, and our quest to triumph over some toddlers www.bbc.com/audio/play/p...

i have to say, as a trans journalist who has covered the "trans debate" for about a decade now, there is no daylight between how the trump administration and conservatives lie about tylenol and autism and how they've lied about youth trans care.

joining the war on autism on the side of autism

I was going to protest this slander of the noble butcherbird but, ah, Kelsey has a point here. 😬

My colleagues at Bird Inc remain undefeated in the "weird notes to each other" category, in this case posted above The Slowest Water Fountain On Earth. That, or my dad re-emerged on this mortal plane just to send me a hello in these trying times. 😭

First five or six posts on my feed all talking about an earthquake/weird police activity/subway shutdown? We're so back.

Can I just take a moment to reflect how unhinged it feels to be a random person who, nonetheless, is also someone that the entire might of the U.S. federal government is looking crush, because I'm trans? Out here sad that I missed seeing a bird but apparently I'm actually a terrorist.

Keeping up with my resolution to get the hell out of the house on the weekends so I don't ⋆˙⟡Descend Into Madness⋆˙⟡ and was rewarded with my lifer Hudsonian Godwit! (I also dipped on a Curlew Sandpiper. Win some, lose some.)

Transit map? check. Extremely petty (but valid!) design critique? check. Opportunity to find even more shitty design decisions by yourself? check. (the line spacing alone! ah!) This post was engineered in a lab to appeal to me specifically. transitmap.net/dart-texas-s...

Love how every post I make here lately has at least one person act fucking weird on it. (and when I mean "weird," I mean "stasi shit.")

Digging around in the couch cushions looking for some patience to deal with people today and it is not looking good for you finches.

Was at the same bar tonight and a couple of Common Nighthawk flew overhead. New species for the neighborhood and I think we're gonna have to just park at this bar for the duration of migration.

I did it again today and I can highly recommend it

I picked a great day to go outside and not be anywhere near the internet.

Always here for molt posts

so incredibly fed up with everything and am retreating to the time-honored solution of fixing my mental health by destroying my hearing.

Inject this into my veins. (related: you'd be surprised to see what kind of ideas trans people can bring to the table, if given the chance. I hope to see tons more of it in my lifetime.)

This advice underestimates just how much I can make something suck absolute BALLS the first time around.

When we were out birding a couple of weeks ago Jeff chatted a bit about this book and it's gonna be so gnarly (in the best way).

Love it when I'm on a call and @zgrueling.bsky.social slides this across my desk. Going to demand people give me treats for every meeting I successfully attend going forward.

oh goddammit these are all European gulls too. Easy-peasy, given my extensive experience with these guys. (Reader, I don't know shit about European gulls.)

My colleagues will fairly frequently ask me to confirm bird IDs in photos and I have discovered that the social media team hates me in a very specific way: They tagged me into IDing a bunch of Larus gulls.

How is this flight to Portland so full of heterosexuals?

My queen! www.sfgate.com/local/articl...

Spent quality time sitting outside a bar, eating spam musubi, and watching a Peregrine Falcon try to make a meal of someone's domesticated pigeon flock.

We have specifically quoted this truth about catbirds at least five times in the last month and will continue to do so until the end of fall.

woke up looking to get into, like, 15 separate fist fights.

I finally did it: canceled my NYT subscription. I have a lot of friends and peers who work at or for the Times who I know aren't racist, transphobic pieces of shit. And I know that dropped subs mean increased chances of economic precarity for them. But I just can't do it anymore.

Me, looking intently at the Libby app: Gimme some of that good gay shit. No, not like that. Or that. Or that. Or that. Ehhhhh....nope. Pass. No. Definitely no. Me to self: Maybe you're just tired and in a bad mood? Me, on the internet: Nobody writes queer speculative fiction anymore.

went to the Dyke March yesterday and it fixed me.

Someone has hung a smiling dickmallow toy in the window of their apartment right next to the train. It is impossible to miss and I love this for all of us.

I know that I have 7 more days to somehow make something happen, but I think this will be the first year in literal decades that I haven't organized or joined some kind of Pride event.

OK definitely a White Wagtail. I had forgotten how variable they are.

UK bird knowers: There's a bird skulking around during this Leeds Test and I'm wondering what it is. It appears happy to walk, slightly larger than a Eurasian Blackbird but with a much longer tail, indeterminate body color but the face is dark with a white patch. It's giving "wagtail," but ? species

Turned on WillowTV just in time to see England lose the dumbest review imaginable. We're so back.

The only thing keeping me going right now is reading and rereading APOCALYPTIC SWING by Gaby Calvocoressi. Have a taste: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58335/...

"In times of absolute horror and destruction I wish for you all the transformational creativity of an utterly beautiful madness, and I offer you the blessing of a holy human freak."

what the hell my headphones just automatically decreased volume. motherfuckers, I was *enjoying* destroying my hearing TYSM

This is how they get you. Birding comes for us all.

Another day, another chance for me and @zgrueling.bsky.social to nerd out about bird molt.

the spouse has informed me that he is going to walk into the local wine store and ask for recommendations for "a white wine that pairs well with the collapse of the republic."

This is so petty

Trying to not dump all of my anxiety onto my colleagues, but as someone who recently had to endure being recorded for 17 hours while simultaneously being exquisitely aware of how my gender identity might get warped by a malicious producer or editor, this whole NYT podcast thing is fucking me up.

Look, the kaiju hummingbirds are amazing but it's the stick-figure Ken Watanabe that keeps me returning to this and laughing because I am truly that internet-poisoned.

It's RTO so that means @robyniwitz.bsky.social is up to her regular hijinks

Riding with a cabbie of the old school: no GPS and somehow expecting me to give him directions for a drive he clearly does multiple times a day.