Alison Stevens
LightNews LightNews
banner
anstevens.bsky.social
Alison Stevens
@anstevens.bsky.social
240 followers 180 following 1.1K posts
not one thing, but a world of possibilities. she or they, check your assumptions at the door
www.alisonnicole.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
anstevens.bsky.social
…I made this?? I made this!!

(I also conducted the peal!)

Ian (organizer of the peal and ringer of the treble) commissioned it and requested that it include a representation of the cathedral
A large framed piece of embroidery sitting upright. It’s a bellringing peal board that reads: “For the 150th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone a peal of 5040 PLAIN BOB TRIPLES was rung on Sunday, 19 May 2024 at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral Edinburgh”. Then there is an embroidered version of the cathedral, and the names of the ringers.
November 13, 2025 at 3:00 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
@gretchenmcc.bsky.social I have only just started reading this book but it seems great and I think it might appeal to linguists with some interest in music???
A book cover with light reflecting off it. Making It Up Together: The Art of Collective Improvisation in Balinese Music and Beyond, by Leslie A Tilley Book epigraph: “Even though they’re making up music, they’re trying to make it up together. It feels great, like you’re having a great conversation with somebody.” Wynton Marsalis
October 9, 2025 at 11:43 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
I have at least one old screenshot for this…oh yeah there’s another!
Ed Yong replying to Jonathan Chait on twitter: Saying nothing at all is an option that is permanently available to you, and that I urge you to more frequently consider. The same goes for tagging me into your thoughts. Tweet: Remember, Marcus Aurelius has already absolved you of the duty of having a take. Image in the tweet (photo of a book page): You are not compelled to form any opinion about this matter before you, nor to disturb your peace of mind at all. Things in themselves have no power to extort a verdict from you.
September 29, 2025 at 1:21 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
I thought this photo from last year of a pair of Carrion Crows might look nice in mono! Almost makes it look like a painting 🪶
Silhouettes of two crows standing on the edge of a stone roof.
September 25, 2025 at 3:59 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
I saw these extremely cute flycatcher babies and at least one parent in Colorado back in July! 🪶
Three very fuzzy flycatcher chicks huddled in a corner where a giant metal pipe meets a stone wall. I think they’re in a bit of a mud nest on top of a human-made plastic box on the wall but it’s hard to tell. Small dust-colored bird with paler belly standing on an aspen branch in sunlight.
September 17, 2025 at 4:31 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
I made an animation of Plain Bob Doubles, going from line to grid and back again 🔔
September 14, 2025 at 12:25 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
I have this amazing mini stapler that is fully collapsible so it won’t leak staples in a bag!! I got it in my high school bookstore and I am very protective of it because I’m not sure they exist anymore!
September 3, 2025 at 7:50 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
Violet-green swallow photographed yesterday over a lake near the Maroon Bells in Colorado. This whole part of Colorado is full of these swallows! They are so pretty! #birds
Pale green water sparkling in sunlight with a violet-green swallow flying to the right. It’s like a tiny rocket (the body) with a wing hanging down pointing backwards.
July 27, 2025 at 6:49 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
I took lots of photos of gannets at Bempton Cliffs in May but I also got this fabulous view of a goldfinch in the town of Bempton 🪶
A bare stick going across the photo from bottom left to upper right with a European Goldfinch standing on it, white belly with gold smudges toward the camera and head in profile to the right.
July 16, 2025 at 3:59 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
I need to actually read more of this book but it opens with a little discussion of breastfeeding, including a protest happening at exactly the time the author was struggling with it being far more difficult than she’d imagined
photo of book On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better, by Kirsty Sedgman
July 10, 2025 at 7:55 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
Kittiwake! From RSPB Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire last month 🪶
A gull-like bird flying to the right at eye level with blue ocean in the background.
June 24, 2025 at 11:13 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
I think the chattering noises in this video are slightly more common but they do also communicate different things. This is from outside my old room where a bunch of magpies slept in the trees
June 20, 2025 at 11:15 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
Here’s some of my magpie friends in Edinburgh!
June 20, 2025 at 11:05 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
Bempton Cliffs is known for lots of seabirds—besides the puffins there are gannets, kittiwakes, razorbills, guillemots, and fulmars.

But I only discovered when I arrived that the cliffs also have tons of pigeons! I love pigeons and was amused by this photo

🪶
Looking down at a rocky cliff top above greenish ocean. On the rocks there’s a razorbill which is a black and white seabird, a northern gannet which is a much larger mostly white seabird, and between them a plain old pigeon with its feathers floofed out.
June 11, 2025 at 8:31 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
Here, have some more puffin photos 🪶
Blurry blue-green ocean with a puffin in the lower left corner flying straight toward the camera. Puffin standing on a clifftop facing the camera with wings partly outstretched. Blue-green ocean with a puffin flying to the right. Its white belly is facing the camera and its right wing is casting a shadow on part of the body while the underside of the left wing is illuminated by sunlight. Blurry green ocean with rocks sticking out and a puffin flying to the right above. This time the sun is illuminating the puffin’s black back with wings outstretched.
June 11, 2025 at 8:31 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
This might be the best photo I’ve ever taken! At RSPB Bempton Cliffs two weeks ago 🪶
A puffin standing next to grass and a rock. The ocean is in the background but it’s far below and out of focus so almost looks solid blue-green.
June 11, 2025 at 8:31 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
Saw these cuties in Paris last month 🪶
A female duck (Mallard I believe) swimming with an escort of five ducklings. There were more out of frame!
June 10, 2025 at 11:25 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
A lot of them have red or really orange on the underside of their wings! But this is also a known variety, called yellow-shafted. Oh actually they might be different subspecies?? Here’s a red-shafted flicker flying away from me a few years ago, in Vancouver. 🪶
Dry grass with a bird flying away just above it. The undersides of its wings are a rich dark orange.
June 4, 2025 at 12:27 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
Got these photos of a tern in Warsaw last month. I think I took them but it could have been @purble.bsky.social! 🪶
A tern flying over a river with leafy trees on the far bank. The bird’s wings make a wide V shape but its head is turned to its right. Same river, tern is now closer and definitely flying to the left, showing the full underside of one wing.
May 29, 2025 at 9:20 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
I am so proud of this photo, from when I lived in Vancouver
A little fluffy hummingbird sitting on a window feeder with its beak pointed up to the right. The beak is slightly open and a tiiiny bit of tongue is peeking out.
May 13, 2025 at 10:28 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
The personal motto I adopted in 2020 was “all blanket statements are bad”

also I saved this and added it to an album for easy reference because I knew it would be super useful!!
A few years ago xkcd did a comic titled Types of Scientific Paper. A bunch of academics made versions of it for their own fields. This is a paper from one of those. The title is “Look it’s all very complicated and everything matters”.
May 11, 2025 at 5:57 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
A pair of wood pigeons for #Twosday 🪶
Some mostly bare branches with two wood pigeons standing on them. The one on the right is stretching toward the other one and is sorta nibbling the other’s face on the side away from the camera.
April 22, 2025 at 10:44 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
Have you read THE FACTS AND FICTIONS OF MINNA PRATT by Patricia MacLachlan? It’s a lovely little book with reflections on just that idea. Opens with this epigraph, which, well, Picasso wasn’t a great human, but it’s different when he can’t materially benefit.
A page in a book that just says: We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth. —Pablo Picasso
April 22, 2025 at 8:54 AM
anstevens.bsky.social
I hear it is World Curlew Day, so here are a couple curlew photos I took in Musselburgh, Scotland in February. Digging out these photos just now has me questioning some of the other #birds I saw on that outing…
A large chonky bird flying against blue sky. It’s got a very long bill and its outstretched wing is pretty long too. Grass with straw-like bits poking up here and there. Curlew is standing in profile with looooooooooong bill to the left.
April 21, 2025 at 1:49 PM
anstevens.bsky.social
the horrors persist
A sunny carpark with a black box (electrical stuff or something) painted on one side: Boxi text THE HORRORS PERSIST then a pixelated cow on a green background. I have no idea what this is. Some game thing?? why is it painted here? It’s not graffiti, it’s like a poster only painted directly on the box and also giant.
March 24, 2025 at 1:00 PM