#live bird migration maps

[pagan-stitches]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Who needs the weatherman on the news, who's mostly wrong, when we have the birds?

Today.

https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/

[great-and-small]

We are hitting peak bird migration season in the United States with hundreds of millions of birds making their way north this weekend. Artificial light can be extremely confusing and disorienting for these birds as they migrate! Please make sure to “go dark” and turn off any unnecessary lights around your home. Your avian neighbors are counting on you to help them on this perilous journey. Lights out this weekend!

Bird migration forecast map is from BirdCast, where you can find more information and live updates.

[sadclowncentral]

about the sea: have you sailed along the southwestern edge of the baltic sea? if yes, could you describe the land and the shore and the water there? i’m doing a little infographic on the fall migration of european starlings from Latvia to the UK (via Denmark) and i’ve never been along that coast! google maps is ok, but cannot compare to someone’s lived experience. especially with the narrative similarities between sailing and flying

this is and remains my favourite ask I have ever gotten, and it took me some time to get it right. The Baltic southwest is in my unbiased opinion the most beautiful place in the world, all year round, and I could never do it justice in all of it’s facets and different faces it wears through the year. So here are some snapshots of the southwest islands through the year, both of the sea and the shore:

Langeland, Denmark in late spring

The southern tip of the island is so flat that it nearly vanished into the sea until you are right in front of it. The belts and straits of what is lovingly called the Danish south sea are a bright blue in the first sunny days of the year. Sometimes, close to shore, yellow-green pollen bloom even creates swirling patterns in the water. There is animals everywhere; birds settled in the quieter water of the bay, mostly seagulls and loons, but swans as well; if you are very lucky, a harbour porpoise will choose the wake of your ship to swim along with, and further east, you might even meet a seal or two. The coast is green fields and white turbines turning so fast that they are blurring before you. Between it all, a constant trail of huge container ships passes the straits, turning the sky close to the water grey with their exhausts. It all seems so warm, until a single cloud passing in front of the sun reminds you of the coldness of the air.

Fehmarn, Germany in early summer

The canola fields are still in full bloom, turning the whole island a bright, joyous yellow, interspersed with specks of red and blue from the field flowers, swishing in the wind. Bright yellow and bright green against the blue backdrop of the Baltic sea. The island and the land here are flat as a pancake, making it easy to see from shore to shore; only on its edges, like a crumpled paper, does the island lift up into sandy cliffsides that drop of dramatically into pebbled beaches. Standing on the beach, the water is a azure blue, and in the sun, the numerous sandbanks are clearly visible in the light turquoise. While the wind is ever present, it is subdued in early summer, but the jagged cliffs are a stark reminder of the violence of the winter storms. All trees lean towards the shore, gnarled branches disfigured by the wind; there is a reason we call it “the land that even trees bow for”.

Ven Island, Sweden in the middle of the summer

Coming from the open water up north, the island appears like a golden hill rising out of the sea. The grainfields in full bloom, the warm sandy beaches, and the sun behind it. Behind you, the Øresund gave you the perfect reprieve, watching cities and mixed tree forest pass by in turn on either side after the rough waters of the Kattegatt, where both North and Baltic sea crash together in a cacophony of wave pattern, shaking you and your boat around frantically over strong winds. Now, on Ven, it seems almost a lifetime ago, as you follow the soft roads winding up the island and watch as grain and water are dispersed by the wind in mirrored patterns, golden and green-blue.

Christiansø, Denmark in later summer

Arriving in Christiansø is always a wild ride. While the sun beats down in unrelenting brightness, the waves and wind that had time to build over the whole Baltic sea are so strong that salt crystals form on your face from the constant sea spray that hits you in the face. The island seems almost unreal – just jagged brown-grey teeth of rock rising out of the middle of the sea with no land visible in either direction for miles, with deepest blue water surrounding it, no ground in sight. The waves crash on the stubborn rocks with a loud crashing sound, and over all of that, the stubborn calls of birds that circle around the islands undeterred. On the island, the specks of green, of still water ponds and green grass (I don’t remember a single tree), seem almost comical against the rusted brown rocks. You stare out into the dark marine blue and watch the sunset through the roaring and screeching.

Rügen, Germany in early autumn

Auttumn has arrived, and with it, heavy clouds and heavier winds. The Baltic sea, as beautiful as it is in summer, as strong are the east wind storms that start belting down on the southwest from September onwards. Without the sunlight, the water has turned a deep angry green, but mostly white, as sea foam flies over gnashing waves. Sometimes, as the water rises past your ship, you can see the last moon jellyfish of the season in long tangled webs of kelp pass you by. The rain is soft and dispersed, but colder than the water and makes visibility low. But then, the northeast of the island comes into view, as darkness has already set in, and as the wind dies down and the clouds disperse the island shines in a blinding white, the chalk cliffs of the island rising above the water. The breaking off chalk turns the water here a pastel turquoise in the sun as it dispersed, but here now, it’s dark grey, just as the sky.

[rockislandadultreads]

Fiction Picks: Arab American Heritage Month

Celebrate Arab American Heritage Month with these fiction recommendations!

Song of a Captive Bird by Jasmin Darznik

All through her childhood in Tehran, Forugh is told that Iranian daughters should be quiet and modest. It’s during the summer of 1950 that Forugh’s passion for poetry really takes flight - and that tradition seeks to clip her wings. Forced into a suffocating marriage, Forugh runs away and falls into an affair that fuels her desire to write and to achieve independence. She perseveres, finding love with a notorious filmmaker and living by her own rules - but at an enormous cost.

Love From Mecca to Medina by S.K. Ali

Adam and Zayneb. Perfectly matched. Painfully apart. Adam is in Doha, Qatar, making a map of the Hijra, a historic migration from Mecca to Medina, and worried about where his next paycheck will come from. Zayneb is in Chicago, where school and extracurricular stresses are piling on top of a terrible frenemy situation. Upon getting the chance to spend Thanksgiving week together on a pilgrimage from Mecca to Medina, Adam and Zayneb jump at the chance. But the trip is not at all what they expected. 

This is the second volume of the "Love From A to Z" series.

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by - palm readings, zars, healings - are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles. But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world is real. 

This is the first volume of the "Daevabad Trilogy."

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. Upon finding the tattered journal of an artist named Laila Z, the protagonist makes the discovery that both Laila and his mother encountered the same rare bird before their deaths. On the road to self-discovery, and after courageously claiming the name Nadir, Nadir enlists friends and family to find out what happened to both Laila and his mother. 

[thoughtportal]

When Philip Sontag first visited Antarctica as a Ph.D. student, he brought back an unusual souvenir: a huge bag of penguin feathers. And now, after a decade-long analysis, Sontag and his colleagues have figured out how to use such feathers to create a living map of the mercury contamination that increasingly threatens Southern Hemisphere wildlife.

Mercury is a common by-product of gold mining, a growing industry in several southern countries. The toxic metal accumulates as it moves up the food chain by binding with amino acids in animals and then infiltrating their central nervous systems, where it can inhibit neural growth. Tracking mercury exposure is crucial for monitoring an ecosystem—but merely sampling rocks, ice or soil for its presence tells little about how much is actually entering the food web.

Many predators, including penguins, have evolved ways to dispose of mercury. The chemical builds up in feathers that the birds regularly molt in large quantities. Sontag, now a polar researcher based at Rutgers University, and his colleagues hoped to use molted feathers to determine where penguins picked up the toxic substance. The scientists were surprised to find a very clear correlation between the feathers’ levels of mercury and of a carbon isotope called carbon-13; the latter varies based on geographic location and thus acts as an indicator of “where the penguins are feeding or where their breeding grounds are,” Sontag says. These findings, published in Science of the Total Environment, confirmed this connection in seven penguin species scattered across the Southern Ocean—a pattern suggesting they’re exposed to more mercury farther north, where the comparatively warmer environment leads to higher carbon-13 levels.

These findings suggest that penguins could function as mercury bioindicators: living trackers of environmental pollutants, says the study’s senior author John Reinfelder, a marine biologist at Rutgers. Rather than measuring the chemical itself in a snapshot of time and place, he says, measuring penguin feathers’ mercury levels tracks the substance’s movement through the oceanic food web. For instance, penguin species known to reside near one another had varying mercury and carbon-13 levels because of their different migration and feeding patterns. These data could be modeled into a maplike database to help guide future projects on conservation and polar science research.

Scientists consider penguins promising candidates for such bioindicators, says marine scientist Míriam Gimeno Castells, a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Marine Science from the Spanish National Research Council, who was not involved in the study. The animals are midway through the food chain. They breed in colonies, so researchers can easily scoop up feathers from many different individuals. Additionally, every breeding season they undergo dramatic molts; the feathers they lose “will contain the mercury that has accumulated during the nonbreeding season,” Gimeno Castells says.

Sontag’s next steps are to collect newer feathers to experiment with, across different species, and to measure mercury in penguins’ blood and prey to compare with levels of the substance in their feathers.

And how are the penguins themselves doing with their current mercury levels? “We don’t believe penguins have been exposed to toxic levels as of yet,” Reinfelder says. “Yes, the penguins will be okay.”

[its-all-papaya]

my hair is washed quali is on chapter twelve of dad lando is out life is good :))

i haven't actually read it yet because i usually save them for when i have the time to chew on it slowly and devour every word ykwim but i actually popped in because im so curious about the process of naming the fic/the chapters? they're all very interesting and it really feels like it matches the vibes of each chapter but i was wondering if there's a line of thought?

Chapter 12

and then it turned out that life was not good!!!! at all!!!! at least DAD lando is happy and thriving......

but YEAH there's a line of thought THANK YOU for asking about this!

i thought about the name of this fic for sooooo mf long. like at least two months into writing it, i still wasn't sure what it was going to be. i've said a billion times everywhere that this fic is bird-coded (thank you @peargcsly you literally changed the course of my life) and so i was very stuck on the idea of like.... migration and innate behaviors. biological maps. patterns we follow. that vibe. but i wanted it to be really concise. i found "overwinter" not toooo far into the process of searching for words that fit the bill, but it took a bit for it to sink in and feel right. basically 'overwintering' describes broadly whatever plants and animals do to survive the winter months. and i liked it because to ME, because the fic is bird-coded, i was ALWAYS stuck on the idea of hibernation vs. migration. like it's gonna get fucking cold. you can either stay where you are and shut down and run on minimum energy to survive, or you can move where it's warmer, even though it'll take some effort. so yeah, that's the title!

and then the chapters are all bird names. i went through the list of 'birds that live in the UK' on wikipedia and wrote down everything that i thought might be a good chapter title, and then i just matched words to ~vibes~, as i already had all the chapters vaguely outlined. that being said, i added about three extra chapters after i named them all, so i had to shift some stuff around, but i think it all still works LOL.

i really appreciate you saying they fit well, because this is my favorite small detail about the fic :,)

[catiecat1320]

Sonadowtober Prompt 6: Autumn Leaves

A walk through autumn

Read Below🔽

Autumn leaves crunched under their shoes as they walked, hand in hand.

It was peaceful, a welcome change from the exciting lives they held. Rarely do they ever just enjoy like this, so Shadow tried to soak in as much as he could.

For once, Sonic didn’t try to fill the silence with chatter, content to allow nature to do the work for him. The last of the migrating birds overhead, the critters scrambling to prepare for winter, nothing escaped the two, gentle nudges opening eyes and ears to anything the other could’ve possibly missed.

Autumn leaves drifted from their trees, landing on the ground with as much delicate grace as a leaf would allow.

Orange, red, yellow, brown. Color poured from branches, a painting come to life. Yet it never overwhelmed, only welcomed, enveloping everything in warmth. Soft, yet powerful. Like a certain someone…

A maple leaf, bright red and five spined, fluttered down from the sky, parking itself atop Sonic’s head and halting both hedgehogs in their steps. Giggles joined the ambience flowing like a melody.

An autumn leaf, held up in front of him with a smile, wordless yet the meaning crystal clear. Shadow shook his head. “I don’t look like that,” it said. 

Sonic only smirked in response, placing the leaf on the tip of the red stripe on the middle of his forehead, much care to his movements, as if crowning a king. Childish. Silly. It was endearing in the way that made Shadow’s heart bubble with adoration.

An autumn leaf, pinched carefully between gloved fingers as he plucks it off his head. Emerald eyes peer at him curiously, no doubt plotting his movements on a mental map. 

They were private people, although Sonic’s outgoing demeanor may hint otherwise, possessing excellent awareness of their surroundings. It was part of why they were drawn so close. The other was a mystery that provided an excitement they craved.

Shadow would never admit that, but he knows Sonic’s already found out.

They took to surprising each other, in unpredictable little ways. Like now. Swiftly, Shadow pressed a kiss to Sonic’s cheek, only the leaf between them. He delighted in the way the blue hedgehog flushed the color of autumn.

Their walk turned into a run. As it usually does.

The maple leaf flew away in the wind as Shadow navigated through the wood, knowing that the more familiar Sonic would catch up to him soon. But that was okay, they’d agreed to leave their competition behind for today… But it didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

He heard the approach long before a hand grasped his arm, turning him around. Autumn leaves swirled in their stumbling steps as they slowed. Sonic wasted no time claiming his victory, pressing his lips to Shadow’s almost smugly. He could feel the smile on the hero’s face as he purred, arms wrapping around his waist to pull him closer.

The best kind of defeat, Shadow believed, is the kind that came with kisses.

[totallynotrico]

and I swear I could slit my throat with your dull knife

Summary: Like a frozen lake, Branzy noticed how Ashswag's expressions hardly changed, how nothing he saw surprised him at all. Branzy remembered falling in love, remembering dates by the beach with nothing but his smile. On the deadliest server in the world, Branzy remembered him.

Playlist maybe

Pairing: Ashswag/Branzy, slight Ashswag/Reddoons but not enough to be worth tagging, Branzy/ClownPierce

Warning: This is a character study for Lifesteal season 3. Clown had something with Ash, they all kinda have something with him. Alternative Title: Ash sounds like a jerk but not being in love is just his thing

Word Count: 4124

Link: and I swear I could slit my throat with your dull knife

..................................................................................................................

Autumn, somewhere over the globe. A fletch of birds flew over the sky, a kind of unknown names and origins; flying together with tails trailing behind them like shooting stars. 

Look! Branzy can still remember his voice, fluttering like a lit candle before the breeze, thumping like a heartbeat, calming like the ocean. It's the sound of something withered, then revived, stuffed full, then emptied out all of the same time, all from the same man. One whose inside is nothing more than marrows and flesh, and bones

Branzy can't recall the shape of their wings or the sound of their calls. The only thing he could remember, however, was a person right next to his side with a finger pointing out into the sky. Look, he said, to the direction he pointed; not at him.

Look; he said, as an invitation, not an expression

Like a frozen lake, Branzy noticed how Ashswag's expressions hardly changed, how nothing he saw surprised him at all. Branzy remembered falling in love, remembering dates by the beach with nothing but his smile. On the deadliest server in the world, Branzy remembered him.

Ash

Ashswag

He was a scary man; he was short-tempered, he was cruel, and he was very LifeSteal. There's no way a person could argue against that; not even when that person had seen him, harmlessly curling up in his bed, taking in shallow breaths, on the verge of disappearing. Not even when they had heard the sound of his half-hearted laugh at Vitalasy's stupid jokes, cackling sharply like taking in breaths. Not even when they had felt the blood on his skin, thumping with muscles and scars, shining like quicksilver under the moon. 

Not even when they had fallen for him, seeing his face in every dream.

"You see, when birds migrate, they move from the colder side of the globe to the hotter one," Rekrap said, eyeing the spread-out map he had opened on the floor. "They need to find a warmer place to live and grow healthily"

Branzy nodded, further asking him with pure curiosity "What if they arrived in the wrong place then? If their navigation was wrong and they never arrived at the correct location with sunshine and food?"

Rek scratches his chin, "If they arrive at the wrong place?" He repeated "I've never seen that happen before… but if that were to happen, the birds would most likely die”

“Ah! That would make them lemmings then” Chief chimed in, raising his head from the scattered pile of books in his library; nodding lightly, Rek exclaimed

"That's actually… Yeah, that would make them lemmings!"

Both on the way of migration, one fell from cliffs while the other watched from above the clouds. 

But then again, what differentiates birds from lemmings if none ever survived in the first place?

It's a similar story, of birds and migration, of death and spinning blades

“Why do you think they didn’t stop?” Ash asked, he was telling a story of that foreign flock of birds; one fell through the turbines of a flying machine, one after another, shredded rough and variegated before failing through the sky, down the cliffs, onto the pile of lemmings at the bottom of the hill. Painting the ground red

“Maybe they don’t know how to, they were following the leading bird. Maybe they didn’t see the blades spinning before them” Branzy said, a piece of information, completely made up and fantastical. He can tell Ash was not believing him, he can tell Ash was smiling, satisfied, entertained by his answer

“How can they not see a trap?” There was an edge on his voice, something ringing, neither malicious nor kind-hearted

“Maybe people didn’t put up a sign to warn them”

Branzy didn’t get to finish the sentence, words on his tongue swallowed down along with the taste of Ash; clogging his throat like smoke, still burning on between Ash’s fingers, like heat, falling onto the surface of his luxurious shoes, leaving behind a dusty burnt mark, like tension, from the nails, grabbing a hand full of his silver hair. 

“Maybe we should start putting up some signs for them” Branzy couldn’t count the seconds, couldn’t register who it was between them who pushed away. Ash turns his head slightly, taking in a breath before handing Branzy the other half of his unfinished cigarette. “Maybe that would stop them from falling next time”

Maybe, he said; like it doesn’t matter, like it never worked

He was right, Branzy realised. There aren't many warning signs on LifeSteal. A few were put up throughout the years, but not many remained after countless battles had gone due to explosions and withers.

"People always repair spawn, I've noticed, but never the signs that were blown up." Ash yawns, placing another block onto the edge of their staircase. There wasn't a rail before, he's making one. Subz complained about this a while ago, though it was only yesterday when Ash tripped and nearly fell off the side did it came to mind how a safety caution would have to be put up

"I hate doing manual labour" He wrinkled his nose; and all most instantly, Branzy replied "Me too"

He can hear Ash's little chuckle as he holds a hand forward, slightly rough and dirty with stone dust

"Hey! Branzy!" he chimes, waiting like it's the last time he will ever do so. Maybe he knew what will happen between them, far better than Branzy ever do

Hey! He hissed

Acid water, an arrow, one single heart, a star

His last sound was one that Branzy could still remember. A squeak when the door opened. A hard thump when he closed it. A rumble on the floorboards when his feet pounded on the stairs. A voice of a man who doesn’t want to be heard but is still shouting through the distance. 

A man that Branzy can no longer see face to face and come back alive. 

“Watch it, Branzy!” A hand on the table, pushing him back a little. A voice in his ear, calling his name above the crowd. A light in his eyes, piercing his mind out. A voice through the darkness, coming from far away. A flash that could only go away with time. A voice he thought he would no longer hear. 

Branzy lifted his head. He was staring at the ceiling, decorated in red and black, he recognized this, there was a shift next to him, Branzy turned over to see Clown, turning in his sleep. 

Harmless, he exclaimed; almost content to strangle him to death... But Branzy knew better, Clown with his hand-knitted below his pillow? He always kept a jagged knife underneath it. It's a losing fight in his mind, and yet Clown looked so harmless in his sleep. 

Why? 

He asked himself, brown hair on green pillows, purple glitching against black cotton, raven pressed onto white sheets. They're all the same, Branzy used to wake up next to them, Godamn it

Branzy reached out, a hand found itself curling up in Clown’s hair, scraping his calves. Through sheets of paper, light bleaches through the windows with glee, dancing against Branzy’s pale skin. The indents where the shapes of furniture sat made Branzy sick, so he covered them with papers, papers and papers; Clown didn’t say anything against this, he need not, Branzy knew the humanoid-shaped shadows made up of pieces of furniture and light made Clown sick too. 

One by one, he covered all of them like newly hatched bird eggs, fragile, sometimes cracked all to bits, but still, he covered them. A man is walking on the paper eggshell, covering it with his feet. A man with a very familiar husky voice, a man with a very familiar face, a man with a very familiar shape. 

“Hey, Branzy,” Ash said, still standing on the pages he just covered, still with his face behind the papers, still with his feet sinking through the paper 

“Look,” Ash walks forward, taking one step after another. The room was small, like a bird cage, covered in papers, covered in words. But the man walking towards him was a trigger. He was a trigger, he was a cause, he was a reason. Branzy reached out towards him, covering him with the papers too, with the words he could no longer say. 

“Hey, Branzy,” Ash said again, it was the last time Branzy ever heard his voice.

Ash

Ashswag, he remembered calling until it was audible

Ashswag

"Ash"

He remembered his raspy voice as if strangled by a rope 

"Don't call me Ash, say it properly, alright?" he remembered a voice replying to him

"Sorry"

“It’s alright,” He remembered his words, smiling, the hanging rope broke free from the wooden ceiling. It hit the floor with a heavy “thud” as if something had fallen along with it, something tasted of metal, of old blood. The taste of iron lingered on Branzy's tongue as Ash spoke to him. It was bitter, like a mouthful of blood. He licked his mouth, tasting the sharpness of his words, like a blade across the tongue, burning, hot and raw.

Sorry, inaudible the way Branzy turned and stared at Ash, soaked in blood with his chipped sword tossed over to the side. He is crouching, eyes glued on a single butterfly wing fluttering against his slim finger. The insect lept into motion, kissing his closing eyelid. 

"Branzy, look!"

He grinned, staring back. Someone should put up signs, Branzy thought to himself, for the migrating birds, for the lemmings, for them before they few down along with those animals

He finished the railways then, safe and secured keeping everyone in and death outside. Now everyone will be safe and not die because of stupid reasons. 

"There's smoke coming from the horizon," Ash said yesterday, during dinner

"Someone's moving to our location" he raised his shoulders and Clutch nodded, they all know what that means

Ash eyed the stone railings as he spoke, they all knew they would move tomorrow. Changing the base to somewhere further to the north during the night. 

On feet, on netherrack, leaving the railings behind

Maybe Ash will put them up again at the new base, unlikely but who knows? Maybe he will, maybe he won't, almost as simple as the thought that they won't have to die if they don't want to

But Branzy would just be kidding

"You still call his name in your sleep sometimes, you know?"

"What?

"It's true, you said Ashswag"

Clown hummed, cheek slumped against his opening palm. His mask's lying on the table, facing up. Branzy tried to protest, face clouded with unknown anxiety. He opened his lips, then stopped, then frowned. Feeling his heart racing in his chest, Clown slightly shifts

"Did he say he liked you?" 

"He did"

"Poor thing" was all Clown had said, setting up the table without bringing up the subject again. He knew something about Ash, they all do. All but Branzy. 

The thought of this made his guts turn inside out, so he took a bite

Branzy would have slammed his fist down the table standing up; would have screamed at Clown asking what he meant when he said that; would have puked and smashed his head against the counter so hard it started bleeding. 

He would have done it, Branzy thought, but he continued eating, biting the meat and swallowing it down. It tasted like white sand in his mouth, iron, bloody, like a dead animal bleeding out on his plate.

Branzy felt nauseous, so nauseous he would rather die.

"I think I liked you" 

He said, from on top of his position seated high up; shadow casting over Branzy. 

"Y–.. really?" Branzy asked, head tilting upwards with his eyes wide open. Behind Ash, the sun dies; bleeding out droplets of blood and burning flesh. Painting the sky crimson, of fire, of dynamite and burning gunpowder

"Yeah" His carefree attitude, curved-up smirk, and glinting eyes are all beautiful and bright and decorate him. More beautiful than ever the moment Ash stood up, Ash stares down at him, and he smiled “I like you, Branzy. Do you like m-”

Ash repeated, unable to finish his words before a weight pushes all air out of his lungs. Branzy tightens his embrace, eyes squinting, a hand covering the man’s mouth

“I do, I like you, Ashswag”

He choked halfway on his own breath as the feeling of Ash’s own finger scraped through his spine; Branzy could tell he was searching for something. He didn’t ask, only hugging him closer

“You have beautiful wings Branzy. Fly higher next time.” Ash said, his words didn’t reach Branzy, barely meeting his ears; Ash said, ever so quietly as if he was mumbling a spell carved into his bones. Branzy can feel Ash, twitching slightly on the ground with an arrow piercing through his eye. Feet tapping against the soil. Branzy can hear Ash, singing without the song of instruments like it would be the last time he would ever be alive. Air scratching against scars. Branzy can see Ash, running through an open field with no words in his mouth. Branzy can smell Ash, the taste of sour apples crunching in between his lips. It's like a curse sometimes, how the images of Ash, of him, Branzy is made of them; of shattered panes and monochrome lens. Black and white, and grey, and purple, stuffed so full to the brim he could no longer recall if any part of him was solely him or not.

His smile, his voice, his words. 

Like little ghost

Like green apples, unripe and tore open from his skin like blooming vines. Ash turned his head, the butterfly flew from his eye socket. It was crystal white, covered in blood and poison; green apple; fluttering in the wind as the man below it stares by; green apple; naive, sour, they didn't wait for it to grow before taking a bite out of it

"How is it?" Branzy asked

"Not good," Ash answered, throwing the eaten apple on the ground; slightly smudging it with his shoe, and pushing it near the stump. "Should have taken the red one, let's go" Ash smiled before turning away, 

"You look sick… did you not know what his affection is like?," Clown shrugged, “You don't have to let him have all the fun, you know" 

Branzy raised an eyebrow, "what do you mean?" 

"You know what I mean" Clown breathes out; he’s looking at Branzy now, up and down. Searching for the sign of a joke; he did not find any. 

The food was not even in his stomach before he was up and stuffing his clothes on and out the door. The air was thick like molasses and it choked Branzy. "Where are you going?" he saw Clown through the glass door, his mask still lying on the table 

"Out" 

"But it's too dangerous" 

"No, it's not" 

"Yes it is, Branzy" Clown hissed, content to stand up. 

"STOP" there was a punch landed on the wall next to him. Branzy does not flinch, his knuckles ache "Just leave me alone, alright?" his words stumbled out; he almost couldn't believe it was himself speaking. He opened the door without waiting for an answer. 

It slammed shut behind him, breaking the glass. Branzy grabbed the bronze knob, shaking it slightly; knowing it was useless to try and move, his leg gave out and he kneeled onto the doormat motionlessly. Branzy felt sick

There was a clash against Branzy's shield, sending sparks through the air where they collided. He took in a sharp breath through his teeth, breathing in the sand and misty dust where it swirls up in the air. He knows who the person is, Branzy realized; how could he not? If it was him, Branzy would know from just his breath alone, how his step shook the earth, how his hair fluttered in the air. He would know him with both eyes covered, he would know him through death and back. 

Ash

"Ashswag" there was a tremble to it, Branzy can feel his glinting eyes, sharp and shiny as a hawk. "Yes?" Ash retreat his sword and swings for the second time, a grin visible now that the smoke had cleared out.

"Hey, Branzy," he dragged out the y, purposely forcing his opponent to take a step back. Giving Ash space to press in, deadly, Branzy remembered him, beautiful, how could he forget? 

If he had had words in his mouth, Branzy would have been consequeous by Ash's absence. But he doesn't, so he fights back; swallowing it down and spare

"Why did you leave?" Branzy can't feel his words, neither can he feel his body; all he felt is eyes staring down at him, bright like a hawk

"It felt like the right thing to me"

Silence, their feet tangled and Ash's breaths lingered next to him, awfully close to Branzy's neck.

 "But you said it would be the two of us, you promised, you- you said you liked me, was that also one of your lies?"

"No" muttered

"Then what is it?" Ash stayed silent, he was thinking of an answer.

"What is it?" Branzy said again, impatiently. "Tell me, Ash!"

"Don't call me Ash" He hissed, eyes sharp with his figure looming over Branzy. Sword locked below his chin, nowhere to run now.

Branzy can feel himself tremble, slightly against the blade; it was close, so close he can even feel Ash's grip, tighten up before loosening

"I like you, Branzy… Do you like me back?" Ash asked, smiling

"I do" there was a choke in his words, shaking violently as if to prove that it was here, that it exists, that it is real. "I love you" Branzy felt it, again, a stun in Ash's expression against the word.

There was something, battler and bruised the way Ash was chewing on it between his teeth. Something red, and bleeding, and burnt. “Oh, Branzy” was all Ash had to say before spitting the thing onto the ground next to him. A heart, red, bleeding, burnt, but still alive, Branzy didn’t have to look to know what it was. Before it was Ash’s, it was his. 

“I like you, Branzy, always do. But I don’t love you, never did” Ash lowered his blade, he was saying something beyond it. Something Branzy could not hear above the ringing of his ears, deafening. Like a goddamn anvil crushing against his chest, it felt hard to breathe; Branzy reached for the heart, painfully silent as he gave it one last beat. 

Clown. He can feel it. So loud in his head, he screamed until the name became audible. "CLOWN!" 

Ash flinched, turning his head before realizing the trap. He faced Branzy again, mushed-up flesh and blood dripping from his socket and onto Branzy's cheek. He smiled, an arrow pierced through his left eye. A poison arrow, Branzy thought as his finger trembled against the wooden bow. 

"Clown huh? At least you found someone who would like you more than I do" Ash smirked, soft as melted butter. He cupped Branzy's cheek with his fingers, holding his eyesight straight.

"Hey. Branzy." Was all he had to say before tumbling over and onto the ground with a heavy thud, twitching slightly from the poison

Branzy reached for him, figure dissolving like a ghost with his eye opened, still smiling

Hey. Branzy

He said, seconds before death took him. Branzy do not recognize his own name, it sounded foreign on Ash's tongue. 

Branzy, he thought numbingly

Branzy, 

Branzy,

"Branzy!" 

Clown said, rushing over. He obviously must have come to aid him haven heard the call. He did not startle, just gently worried. The battle must have been over by now, Branzy would be naive to think so… but he couldn't care any less at this point

"How are you feeling?" He asked on the way back, Branzy wanted to laugh at that. So hard he could crush his spine in between his skin and allow the cracks of it to tear him wide open. 

Pain, aching betrayed and amused. Like it was both happy and sad, disgusted and pleasure at the same time. He couldn't register his own emotions, it feels as if it was everything, yet nothing at the same time. The people of Echocraft sometimes call this a bipolar reaction, a kind of sickness in his crumbling unstable mental mind. They might be right, if not for Lifesteal proving otherwise. To be sad or happy, or angry, or afraid; they were all his choice to do so, they are all his emotions, goddamn it. So what if he smashes them together sometimes, so what if he mistakes one for another? What if these emotions were crowned to him for outbreaking himself, what if he fought for them to become his? 

"It's not bipolar if we're all sick, isn't it? A disease would never even exist in the first place if everyone had it running in their veins" A foot away from him, Ash stood, on the same eggshells covered in paper; with that same figure, hidden behind paper. Branzy took a step, he could feel his nails tearing the paper; from the cracking shell of Ash, butterflies flew out in a fearsome storm of blinding white. Branzy stopped, feeling pieces of scrap against his feet. He took a breath, he kneeled, he cracked open

"How are you feeling?" 

"Everything" 

Clown nodded, retrieving back into silence. Branzy liked it better this way.

Ash, laying on the ground peacefully

Ash, speeding through the field on his skeleton horse

Ash, too fast and not enough

Ash, crashing the destination with too much glee in his eyes

Ash, of ripped jeans

Ash, and unfixed tie

Ash, messy suit drenched in blood dripping from his own eye.

Ash, through a layer of unspoken words 

Branzy stretched his arm, desperately cleaning strings of red liquid from his figure. Red stuck onto his fingers, red bleached his hair and drenched him in it. Even if Branzy sink in, he didn't even step back

He rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. Swearing to God he would take away all war and pain from him, using pieces of himself to make him clean again, to make him Ashswag again.

"Branzy" Clown muttered weakly, hand reaching for him through the dark. "That's enough"

He looked back at Clown; then at Ash, Branzy couldn't register his face, not anymore. He had never been Ashswag, not the one Branzy saw in his memories or dreams. That is, if "Ashswag" ever existed in the first place. 

Enough. 

"Let's go home"

Branzy turned, reaching for Clown

Their hands met 

And there was light

It was weeks before Branzy could unwrap the star from its cover

"For me?" Clown asked, fingers cuddling the little star in his palm. Slightly chipped but still glinting like a diamond, there is blood staining it from the moment Branzy gave it to him

"Of course" He answered, barely meeting Clown's eyes. Branzy opened his mouth, his throat felt dry. "Uh, Clown?"

"What's the matter?"

"About Ash… had he ever loved anyone?" 

Clown didn't answer, only rubbing his chin "Once, yes; they worked together, pretty famous businessmen. You might know him, the name's-"

Branzy slowly shook his head; with a trembling smile, he hold a finger before his lips and Clown stopped

Of course, it was him

Always was

Branzy folded himself over, desperately holding back his hiccups. It was never Branzy, he never even had a chance. He felt pain, too much, yet not enough. Branzy felt like a man breaking in and out of himself, he felt like lemmings, like birds, like wind turbines and cliffs; like being alive, like dying, like choking himself to death with his very hands

"I hate him," he sobs "I hate him" so much I had fallen for him

Ash, Ashswag, that man is like the universe. So cool and so breathtakingly beautiful, even when Branzy thought he had him within his grasp. It was never the case at all. Even when he thought he had understood everything, there was still so much more he couldn't fathom

He was stupid, achingly stupid

He had fallen in love with the universe

Over the sky, a single butterfly flew through the storm. Fluttering fiercely before turning into birds, bloodied and jagged like poorly cut paper. Their wings gave out, falling off and down into lemmings, towards the cliff where they died. 

Branzy watched on; they're different from these animals, he thought. They can stop if they want to, they don't have to die.

But he would only be humouring himself.

[grisha-southerncolonies]

West of the Southern Colonies

Excerpt from a journal, belonging to a member of the Black Spear Gang

“Ma definitely dropped this dumbass on his head when he was a babe, cuz ain’t no man in his right mind would’ve thought dragging us through this hellscape was a bright idea, no matter how much money on the line. We should slit these know-nothing tourists throats back at Red Hill. Screw the other half of the payment. We need our damned lives more than this money. Creator’s sake, pa must be rolling over in his grave right now. I shoulda smothered Chevy in his sleep when we was kids for this shit.…”

An excerpt from a field report drafted by a former Ranger

“We have taken Tracker Nxili’s advice and have begun to barter goods to gain more information on the local geography. It has since far been our most wisest course of action, as we’ve reached the farthest estimates on the reaches of the Crags and braving into any new territory would guarantee us more losses among our expedition. However, Colonel Aalders, I implore you to understand that I do not believe we will have any realistic prospects on continuing past the Heathlands and Pines. Based on Nxili’s report on his meeting with the village’s elder, if these simple yet hardy tribesmen fear even speaking of what lays beyond the Vale, we have little hope of journeying past the Ziksala Mountains without a fully armed and supplied contingent…”

Quote from unknown Esali shaman and chieftess

“Birds fall upon its fangs. Mice finds themselves gutted through its throat. It is the home of dogs and bats. Only the friends of death find themselves welcome. And you, my brother, would be much better off in the company of the living.”

On the Edge of the Unknown…

Kerch knows little about what lays past the Ziksala Mountain range. It is the final boundary on the Southern Colonies and surrounding territories before blank parchment makes up the rest of the map. The only thing they do know is the Vale, as native southerners will only ever refer to it as, is the singular straight path through the surrounding treacherous peaks. It’s the most convenient entryway into the verdant grasslands, overflowing jeweled mountains and flourishing jungles of the humble Kerch man’s dreams—if Merchant Council propaganda can held as accurate. Or perhaps more realistically, even if a tad bit fantastical, it is the deadly beast filled wilds of his nightmares. Fortunately, or unfortunately, based on your persuasion, the Eastern Gate, a 300 mile long wonder of Materialki stonework, bars the Vale from outsiders.

What else is known about the unexplored land, is somewhere in its jungles is the origin of the Zacotans’ homeland and former empire. Whose collapse is perhaps one of the foremost mysteries university scholars still ponder over today. However, more is known about the lost Southern Huilonen cities, although relatively it is still not very much. Their ancestral territory used to be within the Vale, made up of marvelous carved towns and cities in its branching valleys. The Huilonen of the Vale have since spread out over the Crags, and many joined their local brother bands, remaking their stone homes, crafting, and agricultural practices. Some have even found community and family in bands of Esali and Pecha peoples. In the present day, Southern Huilonen make up the highest demographic of Native Southerners in Ter Avest settlements. With Zacoteña coming up behind them as a close second.

Native Southerners are remarkably obstinate about imparting knowledge on what they know about the Vale and the land beyond. It is common superstition among tribes that speaking of evil things invokes their power over you. This is especially true of Southern Huilonen, who will immediately shun you from their homes and at times, their villages, if dared pressed upon the subject of the story on their migration from their ancestral land.

“If I might ask, madam, what is the reason for the hostile sentiment of the Southern Huilonen against Zacotan Corporalki?”

Craftswoman Tiponi Silver Dagger makes a superstitious gesture of banishing evil. Quote, as translated by Danique: “Because they refuse the beauty of creation, and they ugly the world in turn.”

[Quote taken from treatise published by Professor Antonia Baas, of the University of Achthoven]

[ansbobcar]

EP 18 - The Researcher, the Rulemaker, and the Tamer

WORD COUNT. 1543

Link to overview

_ _ _ _ _

A rather odd combination of companions were having tea with her following Orter’s stuffed schedule of 3 days. In his words: “Think of it as the cost of losing a week's worth of time,” as he began picking through the mountains of papers sent to his room. Including some of her own she’d later realise.

“Seems like a fine punishment,” petting Hippo-tan, as she briefly went over the situation. “Did you ask him where he went?” She shook her head in disagreement.

“What if he’s seeing someone behind—” interrupted by the sudden tight grip on her shoulder “—please stop it, Ryoh,” glaring at the most veteran Divine Visionary in the room. 

There was no need to bring up such a concern as infidelity if the response was only going to be: “I trust him. It’s not like I own him.”

Even more convincingly, the strongest magic user broke out in a giggling fit. “Oh to be called a ‘sunshine’ by him,” with a smirk. “You do take after me!” Like god-father, like god-daughter. As he cried into the bookworm’s shoulder.

“Rinka, can I ruin his hair for 30 minutes?”

“Isn’t that too short?”

“You’re right, Agito,” she whipped her head again towards the blonde. “Make it 60.” Causing his distress to increase with a paler complexion as he tried to get sympathy and pity out of the woman. ‘Please let this old man live, daughter of mine.’

“Let me get the timer,” she stood up.

“NOOOOOO!!!”

It would be wrong to not talk about how her heart leapt at his sudden gesture but they were supposed to be used to it. Even though it’s barely been 4 months since she suggested this or 7 months if they were faking the history. It’s technically not fake… but it’s not of genuine romantic origin either. She should ask for clarification later on before it falls apart. As Hippo-tan anchored Ryoh in place while she grabbed the hourglass. There’s still time to figure out these feelings.

_ _ _

Time passes with their duties occupying their time. In particular, there’s been some odd movements of certain magical creatures. So far, the most crucial and concerning were the dragons. “Some move north for hibernation and their eggs, and some move south like the birds.”

“But that’s the territory of the elves, is it not?” The blue-haired teen pointed at where the two groups intersected. 

“We’re on good terms with the elves, you think it’s possible to stop by to ask them about it?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. Hippo-tan’s familiar with that area and knows his kind better,” much to the other two’s surprise. Who knew Agito Tyrone’s pet dragon had such vast knowledge? Watching at the shrunken creature, waddled on the map and yipped. Almost like a dog towards them. “Hippo-tan said that although it’s considered the elves’ territory, the forest here”--within the intersecting area--“is actually a common… stop for dragons when migrating. However, the timing is a month early. That means something or someone has interfered with the environment north and south.” The orange dragon huffed, smoke rose from their jaw before letting out a grunt.

“But there haven’t been any reports about environmental destruction,” Tsurara recounted still stumped by this case. “Then shouldn’t Agito try asking the other dragons at the intersection? It would save on time,” she suggested, holding onto a heat retaining object. Silence permeated through the room as the dragon turned towards her.

“The elves do not particularly… enjoy my presence,” attempting to hide the grin that suddenly widened at the thought. “After all…”

“Do you need us to follow as well?” The Blood Cane tried to alleviate his discomfort. He was crucial for the task at hand. Irreplaceable. “We can go as a group if needed, I can carry everyone as,” she stopped as Hippo-tan drooped on the table and with suppressed calmness, the Dragon Cane held her hands.

“Please use a translation or universal language spell, miss.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need me to bring Renatus along?”

“It’s fine. Please use the translation spell you taught me.”

With a hint of dejectedness, her hand dropped back to her side with little control as he let go. She let out a sigh, “Alright.”

_ _ _

Their trip across the plains was peaceful with Tsurara’s arms wrapped around Rinka’s torso as they flew towards the location. “I’m sorry, R-rinka, I can’t fly as well as you,” she stammered. Out of all her classes, she suffered the most in regards to broom flying. Unable to focus on the surroundings without feeling like barfing. “It’s fine, an urgent matter is an urgent matter. Plus you have better range than me.”

“But… I haven’t done anything so far either…”

What has she ever done since she stepped foot into the Bureau? Through all the freezing outbursts, and slips in the halls, she was there to burn brightly. A guiding light in her isolated and perilous place.

To be able to learn and apply magic beyond her own is something she herself is envious of. She only had ice. Solid, sharp, slippery blocks, surfaces. She couldn’t manipulate it that well either. The sheer output destroyed that seaside town after all… and only one person was reported injured in their report, The Blood Cane. 

“You’ve done plenty already with the projects and I’m sure you helped out Ms. Ivona when she joined us. By the way, you’re not burning right?”

“No, you’re warm,” as she always was. “You’re like your own sun.” Even if something felt extremely wrong to her, she couldn’t tell what it was. Or rather found it hard to believe… how did Rinka begin the relationship if only she was around him at the time? Doesn’t Orter care about her as much as she did if not even more?

Even without looking back from the casket during the funeral service, he uttered with suppressed determined rage. “I will find the perpetrator.” He had left before the burial as well.

Don’t get her wrong. She appreciated her senior and junior as much as the next person in the Bureau. They’ve done a lot already than she could hope to imagine. It’s just… it wasn’t something she could alleviate from her heart which ached with mild disdain towards the two.

“Don’t be like that Tsura!” Holding onto her hands, she felt considerably heated and flushed in her light blue presence. The same fingers chipped away at her icy reaction. “It hasn’t been that long yet but he’ll get used to me and my presence.”

‘Did he though? Even after all this time?’ 

_ _ _

“What do you mean you haven’t heard from Rinka or Tsurara for the past two days?” Ryoh looked at the younger man sceptically who was fiddling with his thumbs. “Weren’t you three tasked with investigating the odd migration patterns?” He nodded. “Then?”

“They haven’t notified me since they left. I’m sorry,” but staying mad towards his junior wasn’t worth it. Not for their time when these were pressing matters. “I would recommend retracing their steps or asking the director for help if you want to be able to contact them easily.” He seemed shocked by this comment. 

“It’s… possible to ask the director?”

“Of course! Follow me!”

However, the two didn’t expect to hear the door slam shut followed by a muffled argument ensuing with little room to breathe. That is of course until they also entered. “They found an illegal lab in the north.”

“That’s exactly why you should send--” his eyes made contact with the Dragon holding Divine Visionary and tensed, “you. This is your domain. Why is a researcher and a rulemaker going in your stead?” He seethed.

“I didn’t want to inhibit the investigation… the Elves and I are on less than amicable terms, it would’ve resulted in a longer investigation.”

“No it wouldn’t! It resulted in the possible loss of 2 Divine Visionaries! We can’t afford that!”

“Now, Divine Visionaries, settle yourselves,” the director’s taps echoed throughout the room. “What brings you two here?” Gesturing towards those opposite the maddened Madl. They quickly explained their intentions. “It is about the same situation. In regards to the two, they told me in detail that they would prefer either Agito or Kaldo to take over. Mainly, in regards to investigating the southern region.”

“What about right now?” Ryoh wondered.

Appearing amidst green smoke were the two, hair frosted in the air and skin pale with markers of white still present. In ill-fitting clothes, she was carrying the younger on her shoulder like a sac of grains. “Director. The lab houses multiple citizens who have become lack-magics. Please transport the cargo from the coordinates to the Magical Cemetery,” before drawing out a shaky breath. “I’ll be at the infirmary.”

With that, the process of a mass burial of more than 200 lack-magics has resulted in the investigation to continue for the next month. The two divine visionaries were requested to make a speedy recovery and for the Blood Cane specifically, manage the younger teen’s state. “Don’t let anyone else tamper with her recovery,” were the director’s words. Fix her state.

Hiding the bitterness in her voice, she replied. “Yes, sir.”

_ _ _ _ _

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

Almost 30 years ago, as an aspiring 25-year-old wildlife photographer, I took my camera north along Alaska’s Dalton Highway to catch my first glimpse of muskox, Arctic tundra, and the region’s bountiful birdlife. Although I followed a corridor built in the 1970s to service the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and trans-Alaska pipeline, as I passed the last spruce tree and crossed the Brooks Range, I felt like I was entering a wilderness unknown. I was naive in many ways, but thrilled by the landscape, its inhabitants, and the beckoning horizons.

In subsequent years, and more than 15 return visits to the coastal plain of Alaska, I’ve come to know the region as not just a wild place: it’s also a land of people, machines, and aggressive corporate ambition. A large swath of the central coastal plain is a massive industrial oilfield complex. Its scale is mostly hidden from public view behind gated roads, but its glow on the horizon is visible by its closest human neighbors as they maintain their hunting and gathering traditions on the land. In fact, the lights can be seen from space.

In stark contrast, to the west of the oilfields lies the single largest expanse of undisturbed land in the United States—the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska. Despite its misleading name, the vast tundra and wetlands here are a haven for wildlife that has remained virtually pristine. But it’s not always the empty wilderness that it appears to be on a map.

In summer, the NPR-A is crisscrossed by small aircraft carrying scientists of every discipline, measuring, studying, and recording the number of new cari­bou calves in its herds, the numbers of Pacific Black Brant arriving to molt, the distribution of fish in its lakes, and the composition of the permafrost just below the surface. Neighboring com­munities visit these ancestral lands to hunt and fish. In winter, the dark quiet of the Arctic night is penetrated by fleets of company snow vehicles searching for oil and detonating seismic blasts.

Despite these incursions, the NPR-A is still hiding wolverine and wolf in its riverine thickets, still traversed by the hooves of caribou and muskox, and at times still an immense space of impene­trable silence. The land here is wild, but always being watched and planned for.

In the summer of 2022, I was part of a team of cinematographers asked by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in partner­ship with the Campion Foundation, to visually document the wild landscape within the Teshekpuk Lake Wetlands region of the NPR-A. We set up a remote field camp along the Ikpikpuk River, and for six weeks we slogged across the tundra filming the lives of the animals, especially the birds—many of which migrate here from all over the world to find mates, breed, and raise their young.

[rockislandadultreads]

Libby Spotlight: Gardening eBooks 

100 Plants to Feed the Birds by Laura Erickson

The growing group of bird enthusiasts who enjoy feeding and watching their feathered friends  will learn how they can expand their activity and help address the pressing issue of habitat loss with 100 Plants to Feed the Birds. In-depth profiles offer planting and care guidance for 100 native plant species that provide food and shelter for birds throughout the year, from winter all the way through breeding and migrating periods. Readers will learn about plants they can add to their gardens and cultivate, such as early-season pussy willow and late-season asters, as well as wild plants to refrain from weeding out, like jewelweed and goldenrod. Others, including 29 tree species, may already be present in the landscape and readers will learn how these plants support the birds who feed and nest in them. Introductory text explains how to create a healthy year-round landscape for birds. Plant photographs and range maps provide needed visual guidance to selecting the right plants for any location in North America.

101 Organic Gardening Hacks by Shawna Coronado

The word "hack" has a multitude of meanings these days, but if you ask garden author Shawna Coronado what a hack is, she might just wave her hand toward her own back yard. She could be pointing at the garden bench she created from leftover wood posts and a few cinder blocks, or the rows of wine bottles buried soldier-style along a winding pathway, or even the garden soil itself, which is blended by hand from an organic soil recipe she devised. A hack is really just a great idea that's come to life.

In 101 Organic Garden Hacks you'll find the top tips, tricks, and solutions Shawna has dreamed up in her career as one of America's most creative gardeners. Some are practical timesavers; others offer clever ways to "upcycle" everyday items in your garden. One characteristic every hack shares is that they are completely organic and unfailingly environmentally friendly. Divided into a dozen different categories for easy reference, each hack is accompanied by a clear photo that shows you exactly how to complete it. If you are looking for resourceful ways to improve your garden and promote green living values right at home, you'll love paging through this fascinating, eye-catching book.

The Edible Front Yard by Ivette Soler

People everywhere are turning patches of soil into bountiful vegetable gardens, and each spring a new crop of beginners pick up trowels and plant seeds for the first time. They're planting tomatoes in raised beds, runner beans in small plots, and strawberries in containers. But there is one place that has, until now, been woefully neglected—the front yard.

And there's good reason. The typical veggie garden, with its raised beds and plots, is not the most attractive type of garden, and favorite edible plants like tomatoes and cucumbers have a tendency to look a scraggily, even in their prime. But The Edible Front Yard isn't about the typical veggie garden, and author Ivette Soler is passionate about putting edibles up front and creating edible gardens with curb appeal.

Soler offers step-by-step instructions for converting all or part of a lawn into an edible paradise; specific guidelines for selecting and planting the most attractive edible plants; and design advice and plans for the best placement and for combining edibles with ornamentals in pleasing ways. Inspiring and accessible, The Edible Front Yard is a one-stop resource for a front-and-center edible garden that is both beautiful and bountiful year-round.

The New Plant Parent by Darryl Cheng

For indoor gardeners everywhere, Darryl Cheng offers a new way to grow healthy house plants. He teaches the art of understanding a plant’s needs and giving it a home with the right balance of light, water, and nutrients. With this book, indoor gardeners can be less a passive follower of rules for the care of each species and much more the confident, active grower, relying on observation and insight. And in the process, the plant owner becomes a plant lover, bonded to these beautiful living things by a simple love and appreciation of nature.

The New Plant Parent covers all of the basics of growing house plants, from finding the right light, to everyday care like watering and fertilizing, to containers, to recommended species. Cheng’s friendly tone, personal stories, and accessible photographs fill his book with the same generous spirit that has made @houseplantjournal, his Instagram account, a popular source of advice and inspiration for over half a million indoor gardeners.

[chamomileeteaaa]

BIRD BLOG TIME FUCKERS

Okay so I have no clue how I'm gonna do this, I assume a format will arise as I go. But right now it's 3AM and I wanna talk about my favorite little birds: the Whooping Crane.

The Whooping Crane is one of the only two crane species native to North America, the other is the Sandhill Crane. (WE'LL GET INTO THOSE GUYS LATER I LOVE THEM TOO)

Anyway Whooping Cranes look like this:

LOOK AT THAT AND TELL ME THEYRE NOT SO CUTE???

Appearance:

You can identify adult Whooping Cranes by their white feathers and patch of red on their head, which goes from their beaks to their cheeks! This patch of red is actually skin and isn't very feathery. They have long, pointed beaks, usually a gray color as you see above. They have yellow eyes and long, thin legs. I've also seen that these cranes often have the tips of their wings black.

Immature cranes have the same long beak and thin legs, but instead of white feathers, have a tan, cinnamon-brown coloring and no red spot. As they age, their white feathers come in, so the more brown feathers they have, the younger they are.

Did I mention that Whooping Cranes are really big? Because Whooping Cranes are BIG

The average height of these guys is approximately five feet (range of 4'1" to 5'3" from what I've seen) when they stand up straight, making them the biggest birds in North America. Their wingspan is 7.5 feet on average, though despite their massive height and wingspan, Whooping Cranes weigh roughly 15 pounds.

Habitat:

Whooping Cranes live in marshes, wetlands, fields, anywhere wet and grassy. They breed in the upper Midwest and around northwest Canada, and migrate south to the Gulf Coast, around Mexico.

I should also mention that Whooping Cranes are very endangered as a species. In the 1940s, due to overhunting and habitat loss, there was once only 21 Whooping Cranes alive—15 migrate birds in Canada/Texas, and 6 that lived year-round in Louisiana.

With human intervention, the species has now risen to a population of roughly 800 (I found an exact number of 836, but can't speak for its accuracy).

Here's a migration map I took of off savingcranes.org (please visit them, they're so cool)

Diet:

Whoopers (I saw someone call them that) ate omnivores, eating a mix of insects, amphibians, crustaceans, reptiles, and small fish and mammals. They'll also eat grain, marsh plants, plant tubers, and acorns.

Fun Facts:

Whooping Cranes' call sounds like a squeaky door. People will try to tell you it's this majestic, one-note mating call, but it is a door hinge that needs some WD-40. Here's a few videos on what they sound like :)

( https://youtu.be/NFzkXdZjQJM

https://youtu.be/8EobJR_jkjs )

Because of how Whooping Cranes almost went extinct, biologists had used aircrafts to teach young cranes how to migrate. (Here's an article on it: https://www.npr.org/2016/03/02/468045219/to-make-a-wild-comeback-cranes-need-more-than-flying-lessons)

They mate for life! They search for a mate at around 2-3 years, and then mate for life. They'll also continuously return to the same nesting and wintering territories. However, should their original mate die, they'll find another mate.

It's late, otherwise I would do more😭

Sources:

https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/whooping-crane

https://savingcranes.org/learn/species-field-guide/whooping-crane/

https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Birds/Whooping-Crane

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Whooping_Crane/?_gl=1*10vkxuh*_ga*OTQ5Mjc2MzYyLjE2ODg1NDEwODY.*_ga_QR4NVXZ8BM*MTY4ODU0MTA5NS4xLjEuMTY4ODU0MTEyNC4zMS4wLjA.&_ga=2.29534207.1501623720.1688541086-949276362.1688541086

https://abcbirds.org/bird/whooping-crane/

I highly recommend checking these sites out, not just for Whooping Cranes, but for other birds.

[laurens333blogg]

BLOG 2: Research/ideas

In our groups we were given the task to create something that relates to the topic of immigration. We had some cardboard, masking tape, pens, scissors etc. and we decided to create a map, representing the world with different aspects representing different issues. It was a nice way to not think too much about planning what we need to create, and just make something. It helped us as a group to communicate and get to know each other. From this task we began to understand everyone’s strengths, and what part we played within the group. So such a small, spontaneous task got us thinking and talking, it really helped us.

This was what we made. I think that by not taking the task too seriously to begin with helped us to think creatively – especially me as I tend to overthink a lot. As you can see it’s a map, we tried to make each corner about a different issue in the world relating to immigration/migration. At the centre is a picture of the earth and a figure made out of masking tape, this is to signify humanity as a whole. In one corner, for example, we stuck down images of sharks and the ocean, to represent sea life and the struggles that they have with sea pollution and the rapid rate of global warming. Another corner shows a birds nest with a little bird, again made out of masking tape. This was to represent the migration of birds. 

After this session, I realised that I didn’t have much information on immigration and I felt like it was time to start researching and exploring different art works that use creativity to express this sensitive subject. I used the Moodle page to see if there were any helpful starting points and I found a link to the Tate website showing different projects on the topic of immigration. I found a really gorgeous oil painting by Maggi Hambling. The painting, named 2016 after the year it was made, depicts a boat sinking just below the surface of the sea. Hambling painted this work in response to media images of asylum seekers drowning in the Mediterranean Sea, she said ‘I kept seeing pictures… Boats were being abandoned by the traffickers and left to drift and disappear’. I think that by using oil paints, the image becomes more tangible and real, not so much depicting the physical journey of migration but the emotional and psychological turmoil and violence that is inflicted on individuals through this process. In addition, the sinking boat isn’t plainly obvious, the way it’s positioned and shown to the viewer implies that it’s disappearing or being forgotten, just like the asylum seekers who sadly drowned. Another significant aspect of the image is its title. In 2016 there was the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis (millions displaced internally and seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, huge humanitarian emergency), there was also the EU referendum and so many other things that were making things worse for immigrants. This is why ‘2016’ can be seen as a protest against political inaction and a memorial to the lives lost during migration. I think that breaking down this image has really helped me, especially in  thinking of ways to creatively express what people have to go through and have gone through just trying to seek help. This is such a heavy topic and one that needs to be approached with sensitivity and understanding. I really admire Hambling’s painting and like the idea of not showing the violence and horror of migrating but implying it, showing it through symbolism as an act of protest but also mourning for the lives lost. I brought this idea to my group when we next meet and it helped us in deciding what our artefact is going to be. 

[museaumofnaturalhistory]

Steeper, Faster, & Higher Peaks Make More Species

As Mountains Rise, Biodiversity Blooms - by Syris Valentine | Nautilus – Environment |23rd/04/2025

In 1807, pioneering German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt published a now-iconic illustration of the Ecuadorean volcano Chimborazo, known as Tableau Physique. One ½ of the mountain he drew is lush & verdant, skirted by thin clouds, smoke billowing from the snow-capped summit. The other 1/2 is a mountain silhouette coated with species names, each written at the rough elevation where Humboldt encountered it. It’s a reminder of the richness of life a single mountain can hold.

Over the past several decades, scientists have learned that, in fact, mountains often contain a greater diversity of species than the plains and jungles at their feet. Though mountains cover only 25 percent of all land on Earth outside of Antarctica, they’re home to some 87 percent of all species of birds, mammals, and amphibians. But biodiversity varies wildly from one mountain to the next, which has been difficult to explain. Some scientists have called this “Humboldt’s enigma.” Now a new paper published in Science suggests that the process of mountain building itself may be responsible—that the pace and magnitude of tectonic uplift determines how much rock, river channels, and microclimates fragment the landscape, and how many distinct ecological niches emerge. The greater the altitude and rate of lift, the greater the biodiversity a mountain will hold, the authors found.

“The evolution of life depends on the evolution of the geology & the climate,” says Indiana University Earth scientist Brian Yanites, one of the authors of the paper. “No matter where you are at or who you are as a species, you are there due to the interconnection of these different Earth systems.”

Yanites says the team’s simulations help address an information gap between the past & the present. While both surveys of present inhabitants of mountains as well as millions of years of fossils suggest a relationship between mountain building & bio-diversity, this relationship has been difficult to confirm. Because mountains continue to grow & erode over time, most fossils are found in lowland basins adjacent to or within mountains instead of in the highlands themselves. Scientists believe that these fossils may belong to creatures that once lived on slopes & cliff sides instead.

To assess how the rise of a mountain range influences evolution, the team of Earth, climate, & ecology researchers ran a series of mountain building simulations. In these simulations, they placed a population of 100 individuals of a single species of rodent-like mammal on a plain & watched how they dispersed & adapted under different rates of tectonic uplift over the span of 20 million years.

VERTICAL THINKING: German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt’s illustration of Ecuadorean Volcano Chimborazo, pictured here, was published in 1807. It was 1 of many maps & paintings he made of the natural world. He was one of the 1st to present scientific data about nature not in tables & graphs but in visual form, & to illustrate the relationships between where different species lived & the elevation of an ecosystem. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

To create their simulation, they took AdaScape (a previously validated evolution modeling tool) & modified it: They altered the algorithm for classifying distinct species as they evolved & excluded other evolutionary forces, like changing climates & the pressures of interactions with other animals - including predators, parasites & symbionts - to focus outcomes on the impacts of mountain uplift & erosion.

As the cyber mountains rose, the animals dispersed into newly created habitats and, in some cases, found themselves isolated from members of their kind. This migration & isolation, over the course of the simulation, caused the critters to diverge from their common ancestor & evolve into new species. The variety of species was proportional to how fast & high the mountains rose, and the pattern remained consistent even as the researchers adjusted many of the parameters of their model: the size & durability of the landscape & the rodents’ lifespan & abilities to disperse, adapt & evolve.

Yanites says the team used rodents for the simulation as they are highly sensitive to changes in their habitat, particularly topography, and because a wide diversity of rodent species currently live in mountain ecosystems & are represented in the fossils around mountain bases. But the simulation could easily be tweaked to model another species with different reproductive characteristics & sensitivities to changes in the landscape, he says, like reptiles.

Carsten Rahbek, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen, who was not involved in the study, says it is one of the 1st to simulate the specific role of mountain geology in species diversification over millions of years. “They showed really elegantly that the uplift of mountains & the topography heterogeneity has a tremendous influence” on species diversity, he says.

The findings reflect what one might find on a tour of some of the most iconic ranges. Take the Andes, which rose rapidly via a series of growth spurts to become one of the world’s tallest. On a per acre basis, it is one of the most species-rich regions on the planet. By comparison, the squat Atlas Mountains lie at the lowest end of the species diversity scale.

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Syris Valentine : Syris Valentine is an essayist & freelance journalist focused on climate & social justice. Beside his newsletter “Just Progress,” his work appears in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Grist, & elsewhere.