Samantha biobabbler
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biobabbler.bsky.social
Samantha biobabbler
@biobabbler.bsky.social
1.7K followers 960 following 7.1K posts
Unbridled enthusiast of that nature thing, card-carrying conservation biologist, photography phan & word nerd. Have swiffer, will fend off mountain lion. she/her
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biobabbler.bsky.social
Just learned abt the northern lights in Mariposa county (& elsewhere) so checked a Yosemite web cam (Yosemite Falls)...

yosemite.org/webcams/yose...

PINK!!
yosemite falls live cam at night showing a pink sky from the northern lights.
November 12, 2025 at 4:28 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
I love fall!!
giant golden maple leaf held (by an olive-green-gloved-hand) horizontally above the holder's feet in golden light.
November 12, 2025 at 2:05 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Found a patch of earthstars in a new location by our house-I'm so psyched!!🤩

🌎⭐️🍄‍🟫
In a bed of tan and fawn-colored live oak leaves and acorn caps is an espresso-brown, star shaped fungus whose interior is revealed as a pale spherical sac containing brown spores.
November 10, 2025 at 2:56 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Saw these beauties, HAD to buy them.

Once again, I am wowed by how gorgeous vegetables can be!😍
Scarlet red radishes with long thin white roots and green leaves are glowing with health and beauty. Held in someone's left hand over a grey metal sink.
November 10, 2025 at 4:24 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Went into my years-abandoned garden to clear out the old weeds, and lo! Autumn crocus survives!!
😍🤩🥳
💜❤️💜
A lavender, 5-petaled, short & bare-stemmed crocus is blooming, showing its long, scarlet filaments. It is amid brown dirt and green grass, in the sunshine.
November 8, 2025 at 2:37 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Cougar video from a neighbor (1 street over) from 5 a.m. today.
😍🤩🦁
November 4, 2025 at 8:42 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
A peaceful day at the wildlife refuge. Volume up for happy bird sounds.😊
November 4, 2025 at 4:07 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
When you are driving in the San Joaquin Valley.

😊🚜

Its eight tires are taller than my car!
November 4, 2025 at 4:03 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Inky caps (Coprinus sp.), new friends discovered on our property, recently.😍

🖤🩶🤍🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫🤍🩶🖤
Looking down upon black and silver capped, white-stemmed mushrooms, which have a small pale hat, to which soil adheres. The background is low growing green annual plants.
November 2, 2025 at 4:13 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Wow, super cool!!!

Reminds me of cuckoo spots!

(From Sibley's app.)
screen capture of a sibley's birding app, the yellow-billed cuckoo page, showing large white spots on the underside of the bird's long tail.
October 31, 2025 at 7:21 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
The Merced National Wildlife Refuge is looking mighty green, of late.🤩

And the sandhill cranes abound!
a wetland with fresh green vegetation, and the open water is reflecting the gray sky.
October 30, 2025 at 12:45 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
And which bandana does she wear whilst carefully bathing to keep her wounded & stitched chin dry, you ask?

While we're at it, is she EVEN a REAL biologist?!

BAM!!!

Proof positive!😅

Mammal Scat of North America. And I've used it in the field w/co-workers to ID cougar poop!😆🥰👍

#SoElegant 😹
A teal bandana labeled "Mammal Scat of North America" covered in black ink sketches of scat (animal poop) of many different mammals in North America.
October 29, 2025 at 2:10 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Was VERY excited to see these guys at my house, today . Now, which (presumed) slime mold is it? Yellow was 10 a.m., grey and black at 5:30 p.m. INaturalist couldn't decide.🤔

Any ideas, @regularslimeguy.bsky.social ?😊

Yay!
and
Halp!
😅🤓
tiny yellow globes on lawn plants and sugar maple leaves. tiny grey globes on green lawn plants, among dead sugar maple leaves. same tiny yellow globs on other green lawn plants many tiny black globes on green lawn plants.
October 27, 2025 at 1:53 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Eeep!!

I DID get a truly terrible photo of this female white-headed woodpecker via my phone peeking out through the french doors.

But, you can actually tell what she is!! See photo and screen cap of the Sibley's app.

I'm super happy about this.😅
female white-headed woodpecker back, tail, and back of head, resting in a fruitless mulberry tree, looking away from the viewer. painting of adult female white-headed woodpecker from the Sibley app, showing the all black back and tail, with black wings with a streak of white on the wing, black back of the head, white cap, face, and front and sides of the neck. She has dark eyes and a black bill.
October 26, 2025 at 4:37 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
So, I need to check the baking bread, now, but ....
orange tabby on jeans-clad lap, asleep.
October 26, 2025 at 2:09 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
So, thanks to @thundergoose.bsky.social I looked up the white-headed woodpecker distribution (via the Sibley app). They have a pretty restricted range in N.A.! I had NO idea.😅🤓
screen shot of Sibley bird app, the page for white-headed woodpeckers, showing their distribution is mostly constrained to the Cascade, Klamath and Sierra Nevada ranges in Washington, Oregon, and California (in the United States).
October 25, 2025 at 5:17 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
This little western screech owl bonked into my neighbor's window at dawn. She carefully placed it in this box on a bench against the house, and under an eave. Next time she checked, it had flown away. Phew!

She said it felt like a cloud--sooo fluffy! (Photo credit KD)
western screech owl standing in an open shoebox, staring at the photographer.
October 25, 2025 at 3:49 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
thanks!!
an orange tabby fast asleep in a far corner of a soft, padded cat bed, back feet propped up on the bed perimeter. The scene is bathed in sunshine.
October 24, 2025 at 7:45 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Just a beautiful little creek canyon in the walk to the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite NP.🥰
Stream canyon in a mixed forest (conifers and hardwoods) in fall. There are sundry large granite boulders, young trees, downed trees, and understory plants, some of which are turning from green to yellow and orange and red. Sunshine is filtered through the trees, lighting up the colorful shrubs.
October 24, 2025 at 2:22 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Found this fabulous giant hygroscopic earthstar (Astraeus pteridis) happily chillin' by the kindling chopping stump.

I DO love these things!😻
giant hygroscopic earthstar has a white balloon like center and beige to black star rays with a cracked-porceline texture. It rests on a natural mixed forest floor with dead leaves, acorns, twigs, etc.
October 24, 2025 at 2:26 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Nice lighting in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, Yosemite NP.
(With a horsetail bonus!)
🏞️
Red-orange shaggy barked giant sequoias surrounded by green horsetail plants, in soft morning light under a blue sky.
October 23, 2025 at 3:06 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Yesterday, I learned that this was prolly Johnson grass, a top 10 invasive baddie in the U.S. (per inat).

I bagged the seed heads, dug it up, discovering the fatty rhizomes it uses to propagate & dug MOAR to get them all.

And plunked it all onto DH's burn pile, to the right of the log.😼🔥
Result!
photo of johnson grass seed head, green with reddish tips. background is an autumnal landscape. bunch grass root cluster with rhizomes as thick as your fingers. tan wood log on a pile of grey ashes
October 22, 2025 at 3:04 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Birds (terns and gulls) benefitting from a people-free beach (for the elephant seals).😍 It's lovely to see how protecting one species benefits many others.💞💞💞
A Pacific ocean beach with grey-beige sand and some rocks out in the water on the right. The beach is crowded with dozens of terns and gulls. The sky is mostly cloudy, so the ocean looks silvery.
October 21, 2025 at 1:22 PM
biobabbler.bsky.social
Some of the best nature code writing I've seen in a long time.🤩
Beautiful and intricate shallow tunnels burrowed into wood (under the bark) by insect larvae. Behind the downed branch are more downed wood, needles, and snow.
October 21, 2025 at 12:18 AM
biobabbler.bsky.social
The Snuggly Season has begun!

🧡🐱🧡
An orange tabby is stretched out very long (and asleep) along a sage-green-fleece-covered right leg and the back of a very dark brown leather couch. Her cute little face is near, her back feet seem very far away, indeed.
October 20, 2025 at 1:59 AM