West Coast Birder
@westcoastbirder.bsky.social
Retired engineer. Politically further left than most. Bleed Dodger blue. Splitting time between Portland, Oregon and Santa Barbara, California.
Calling the police on a person having a mental health crisis is a death sentence. When will people learn this? 🙁
www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...
www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...
Cowboys official reported Kneeland text to police
On the night of Marshawn Kneeland's death, the Cowboys' director of security called police to ask for a welfare check after Kneeland sent texts that "seemed to be saying goodbye."
www.espn.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Calling the police on a person having a mental health crisis is a death sentence. When will people learn this? 🙁
www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...
www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...
Looking for good references (books or papers) on negative externalities of both fossil fuel technologies and electrical alternatives for transportation. For example, how do we objectively weigh EV-related mining against the obvious negative externalities of fossil fuels.
Pointers welcome! 🙏🏾
Pointers welcome! 🙏🏾
October 22, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Looking for good references (books or papers) on negative externalities of both fossil fuel technologies and electrical alternatives for transportation. For example, how do we objectively weigh EV-related mining against the obvious negative externalities of fossil fuels.
Pointers welcome! 🙏🏾
Pointers welcome! 🙏🏾
I swear, Blake Treinen is going to take a decade off my life. Roki didn’t help either.
October 14, 2025 at 3:04 AM
I swear, Blake Treinen is going to take a decade off my life. Roki didn’t help either.
On Sept 30, I retired from the only company I have worked for, after 35 years of employment. It’s a new experience waking up every morning without a clear schedule of things to do, but I think I’ll get used to it! 😉
October 9, 2025 at 2:44 AM
On Sept 30, I retired from the only company I have worked for, after 35 years of employment. It’s a new experience waking up every morning without a clear schedule of things to do, but I think I’ll get used to it! 😉
Just started listening to the audio book of Braiding Sweetgrass. Achingly beautiful. The story of Sky Woman and Turtle Island brought me to tears. The narrator was an excellent choice - her voice is perfectly suited for the book!
August 30, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Just started listening to the audio book of Braiding Sweetgrass. Achingly beautiful. The story of Sky Woman and Turtle Island brought me to tears. The narrator was an excellent choice - her voice is perfectly suited for the book!
Some nice dashcam footage in 4K of my drive through Shasta Trinity NF and over the Siskiyous last weekend. I love this section -done it dozens of times. Background music is my Tidal playlist on the car audio. Hope you enjoy it! Remember to view in 4K!
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
I-5 California to Oregon Scenic Drive - YouTube
This playlist has 4K dashcam clips of the Northern California and Southern Oregon sections of my recent drive from Southern California to Portland Oregon. Da...
youtube.com
June 22, 2025 at 4:33 AM
Some nice dashcam footage in 4K of my drive through Shasta Trinity NF and over the Siskiyous last weekend. I love this section -done it dozens of times. Background music is my Tidal playlist on the car audio. Hope you enjoy it! Remember to view in 4K!
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Nightshift by the Commodores is the finest, smoothest song ever written and performed.
That’s a hill I’m willing to die on. 😎
youtu.be/FrkEDe6Ljqs?...
That’s a hill I’m willing to die on. 😎
youtu.be/FrkEDe6Ljqs?...
Commodores - Nightshift (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by CommodoresVEVO
youtu.be
June 18, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Nightshift by the Commodores is the finest, smoothest song ever written and performed.
That’s a hill I’m willing to die on. 😎
youtu.be/FrkEDe6Ljqs?...
That’s a hill I’m willing to die on. 😎
youtu.be/FrkEDe6Ljqs?...
Is there anything more disrespectful than walking away from the squat rack without putting away your plates? Put me in a foul mood this fine Sunday morning. Rerack your damn weights, yo! Don’t make others clean up after you! 🤬
May 11, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Is there anything more disrespectful than walking away from the squat rack without putting away your plates? Put me in a foul mood this fine Sunday morning. Rerack your damn weights, yo! Don’t make others clean up after you! 🤬
Why does the Dodgers-Braves game have a 715 pm ET start on a freaking Saturday?
a man with a mullet and a mustache is wearing a wig and making a funny face .
ALT: a man with a mullet and a mustache is wearing a wig and making a funny face .
media.tenor.com
May 3, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Why does the Dodgers-Braves game have a 715 pm ET start on a freaking Saturday?
Reposted by West Coast Birder
The final words of “The Velvet Queen,” the amazing documentary on the snow leopard:
Revere what is in front of us.
Hope for nothing.
Delight in what crops up.
Have faith in poetry.
Be content with the world.
Fight for it to remain.
Quite possibly the finest documentary I have ever seen.
🐆🌿🌎
Revere what is in front of us.
Hope for nothing.
Delight in what crops up.
Have faith in poetry.
Be content with the world.
Fight for it to remain.
Quite possibly the finest documentary I have ever seen.
🐆🌿🌎
October 31, 2024 at 3:52 AM
The final words of “The Velvet Queen,” the amazing documentary on the snow leopard:
Revere what is in front of us.
Hope for nothing.
Delight in what crops up.
Have faith in poetry.
Be content with the world.
Fight for it to remain.
Quite possibly the finest documentary I have ever seen.
🐆🌿🌎
Revere what is in front of us.
Hope for nothing.
Delight in what crops up.
Have faith in poetry.
Be content with the world.
Fight for it to remain.
Quite possibly the finest documentary I have ever seen.
🐆🌿🌎
The end of the seminal Watson & Crick DNA paper in Nature : "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”
Is there a more profoundly understated sentence anywhere in the scientific literature?
Is there a more profoundly understated sentence anywhere in the scientific literature?
April 6, 2025 at 11:14 PM
The end of the seminal Watson & Crick DNA paper in Nature : "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”
Is there a more profoundly understated sentence anywhere in the scientific literature?
Is there a more profoundly understated sentence anywhere in the scientific literature?
April 1, 2025 at 3:21 PM
My son just informed me that his first-author paper submission was accepted for publication. This will his 2nd first-author peer-reviewed paper to be published. He has at least one other manuscript in prep for submission. Not bad for a junior in college. I hope it helps his grad school applications!
April 1, 2025 at 11:58 AM
My son just informed me that his first-author paper submission was accepted for publication. This will his 2nd first-author peer-reviewed paper to be published. He has at least one other manuscript in prep for submission. Not bad for a junior in college. I hope it helps his grad school applications!
Powerful.
One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.
March 29, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Powerful.
Pied-billed grebe in the UC Santa Barbara campus lagoon. The area around Campus Point and the lagoon is an extremely productive birding location. Easy to get 50+ species on a 2-hour birding walk around there.
#birds 🦉
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
#birds 🦉
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
March 27, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Pied-billed grebe in the UC Santa Barbara campus lagoon. The area around Campus Point and the lagoon is an extremely productive birding location. Easy to get 50+ species on a 2-hour birding walk around there.
#birds 🦉
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
#birds 🦉
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
It is spring time and the red winged blackbird males are on full display with their epaulets and their song. Here is a magnificent specimen, photographed in Goleta, California. Click on photo for larger image.
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
#birds 🦉
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
#birds 🦉
March 25, 2025 at 5:52 PM
It is spring time and the red winged blackbird males are on full display with their epaulets and their song. Here is a magnificent specimen, photographed in Goleta, California. Click on photo for larger image.
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
#birds 🦉
Canon R7 + RF100-500L.
#birds 🦉
Post a warning.
March 24, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Post a warning.
Mockingbird males have started their courtship singing. Bachelors will sing through the night. Goodbye to sleep for me! May need to go the store to buy a fan just to drown out the sound! 🥱🦉#birds
March 24, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Mockingbird males have started their courtship singing. Bachelors will sing through the night. Goodbye to sleep for me! May need to go the store to buy a fan just to drown out the sound! 🥱🦉#birds
Spring is here. The weather is gorgeous in my little corner of paradise and the California poppies are in riotous bloom! 🌿 #Nativeplants
March 24, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Spring is here. The weather is gorgeous in my little corner of paradise and the California poppies are in riotous bloom! 🌿 #Nativeplants
Reading Emperor of all Maladies.
Wow, great book. Honestly, I don’t know how oncologists do it and what their burnout rate is. Surrounded by grief with the occasional miracle seven days a week.
Wow, great book. Honestly, I don’t know how oncologists do it and what their burnout rate is. Surrounded by grief with the occasional miracle seven days a week.
March 20, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Reading Emperor of all Maladies.
Wow, great book. Honestly, I don’t know how oncologists do it and what their burnout rate is. Surrounded by grief with the occasional miracle seven days a week.
Wow, great book. Honestly, I don’t know how oncologists do it and what their burnout rate is. Surrounded by grief with the occasional miracle seven days a week.
Trump is Right. The System IS Broken.
YouTube video by Bernie Sanders
youtube.com
March 5, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Brilliant article on the rise and fall of American football (and as a metaphor for America itself) in Granta magazine. @grantamag.bsky.social
granta.com/mucker-play/...
granta.com/mucker-play/...
Mucker Play
‘When you said so loudly that you were the best, that you were worth the top dollar, then not just every game but every play became important.’ Nico Walker on the rise and fall of American football, f...
granta.com
March 4, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Brilliant article on the rise and fall of American football (and as a metaphor for America itself) in Granta magazine. @grantamag.bsky.social
granta.com/mucker-play/...
granta.com/mucker-play/...
Hope nobody is interested in knowing any details of incoming hurricanes, storms, etc. Maybe the power of prayer will save the true believers. The rest are doomed.
www.axios.com/2025/03/03/d...
www.axios.com/2025/03/03/d...
DOGE moves to cancel NOAA leases at critical forecasting centers
NOAA's nerve center of national weather forecasting is on a lease cancellation list.
www.axios.com
March 4, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Hope nobody is interested in knowing any details of incoming hurricanes, storms, etc. Maybe the power of prayer will save the true believers. The rest are doomed.
www.axios.com/2025/03/03/d...
www.axios.com/2025/03/03/d...
What a loss. RIP.
You don't have to be a great entertainer to be a great rock 'n roller but David Johansen was both. Rest In Peace. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/a...
David Johansen, Who Fronted the New York Dolls and More, Dies at 75
In the 1970s, he and the transgressive Dolls were proto-punk pioneers. He later refashioned himself as the pompadoured lounge lizard Buster Poindexter.
www.nytimes.com
March 1, 2025 at 7:36 PM
What a loss. RIP.