Liz Weinberg
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eaweinberg.bsky.social
Liz Weinberg
@eaweinberg.bsky.social
1.5K followers 250 following 410 posts
Science communicator, writer, & community coordinator; queer nature nerd. Author of UNSETTLING: SURVIVING EXTINCTION TOGETHER & at work on a book about urban animals. She/they.
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eaweinberg.bsky.social
Currently reading a study about mesopredator (raccoon, coyote, skunk) cognition and please enjoy this photo of a raccoon in a box scientists built for it to press buttons in

(study is Stanton et al, Variation in Reversal Learning by Three Generalist Mesocarnivores) 🧪
a black and white image of half a raccoon's face VERY CLOSE to the camera
September 17, 2025 at 6:50 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
This is your regular reminder that Jacobin pigeons exist, and they ARE coming to steal your husband 🪶

(photo via WikiCommons: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_...)
a ridiculous looking pigeon. It is mostly white with a few dark feathers on its wing and tail, and a few golden feathers in its ruff. Its ruff is the bizarre part—it has fluffy-looking feathers sticking out all around its neck in a collar that makes it look like it's wearing a Elizabethan ruff.
September 9, 2025 at 7:11 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
And "Caching for where and what: evidence for a mnemonic strategy in a scatter-hoarder," Delgado and Jacobs:

(bonus for this one: each squirrel received 16 nuts. fair payment!)
screenshot of study, reading 2. Material and methods. The study was conducted on the University of California at Berkeley campus, with a population of marked, free-ranging fox squirrels, as described in earlier studies. Forty-five individual squirrels (17 female and 28 male) participated in the study.
August 22, 2025 at 4:46 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
For example, in "Cognitive Performance of Wild Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in Rural and Urban, Native, and Non-native Environments," Chow et al
screenshot from the paper, reading "Materials and methods. Sample and study sites. Thirty-seven wild gray squirrels from the native environments (United States) and 29 squirrels from the non-native environments (United Kingdom) participated in this study.
August 22, 2025 at 4:46 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
I understand that bears are large, but I saw bear poop today that was approximately two+ inches in diameter and I am perturbed
An array of cylindrical turds; the photo completely fails to communicate how big they were
August 20, 2025 at 2:32 AM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Magpie says you should read trashy fantasy novels and nap on your couch
A very cute brown dog with pointy ears napping on a couch nuzzled up against her blanketed human’s legs
July 13, 2025 at 3:16 AM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Where did I go wrong that this isn't my life
A ranger has picked up one of the Denali sled puppies to show it off to the puppy cam and it has decided it must lick their face immediately
July 9, 2025 at 10:51 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
why are these not my legs
someone's legs (presumably a park ranger, they're clad in park-ranger-green pants) in the puppy enclosure, surrounded by so many cute puppies
July 9, 2025 at 10:24 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Update: one of them is in The Tube and its sibling thinks this is NOT FAIR
One tiny dark gray puppy is halfway in a big PVC tube that says "Feeding Time ~11:45 ~4:30 AKST"; only its back half is hanging out. Its sibling, who is lighter gray with white markings, is halfway through a awoo of annoyance that that puppy won't play with it.
July 9, 2025 at 10:22 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
HOW PUPPY SO CUTE
two Alaskan husky puppies considering playing with a small rope toy. One is tan with white markings while the other is black with tan and white socks. They have pointy ears and curious faces and look like the softest best things in the world
July 9, 2025 at 10:00 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Today I learned that there is a pigeon breed named the Antwerp smerle, and saying that out loud definitely brought a smerle to my face

(image via wikimedia: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An...
a white pigeon with a warm brown wing in profile. It has an upright neck and a very small beak, and generally looks simultaneously regal and very very silly
June 25, 2025 at 6:02 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
But I do want to point out that a different ecosystem isn't necessarily a BAD ecosystem. While I saw few stars, what I did see was AMAZING, including:
a clown dorid, which I'd never seen before!
the cutest sculpins!
a stalked jelly, a thing I never before knew existed!
7/
a teeny tiny nudibranch (sea slug). It's translucent white with little orange protrusions, including a ruffle-like set of orange external gills on its butt and a concentration of orange nubbins on its head. It is adorable, and in a rock pool between some barnacles two tiny sculpins (fish) in a tide pool a tiny yellow jellyfish with a "stem" at one end and a bell with little knobs on it at the other end. It's kind of out of focus because my camera is terrible at this level of zoom, and is hanging out in a finely branched reddish algae
April 3, 2025 at 11:37 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
I don't have pictures from the last time I was there—that was before I carried a camera in my pocket all the time!—but today I definitely saw a LOT more sea urchins than I remember, which makes sense, since sea stars prey on them.
4/
Many sea urchins (mostly purple, some red) in a rocky pool
April 3, 2025 at 11:37 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Today, I saw four sea stars. FOUR. And none of them were sunflowers—rather, three blood stars and an ochre star
3/
a bright five-armed orange-red sea star in a shallow rock pool a brownish purple ochre sea star clinging to mussels and rocks. It has little white bumps all along its body (this is normal!)
April 3, 2025 at 11:37 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Back then, the place was lousy w sunflower stars. If you've never seen them, sunflower stars are HUGE (apparently they can grow to 1m across? I remember them being dinner-plate-size or a bit bigger), have a truly ridiculous number of arms, and come in several colors.
2/
Photo: Gullekson/WDFW
An orange sea star with 18 arms
April 3, 2025 at 11:37 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Took myself on a field trip to Salt Creek Recreation Area on the Olympic Peninsula today—my first visit since ~2012—and while I knew Sea Star Wasting Syndrome hit the region hard, it was astounding to see how much a difference it made.
🧪🦑
1/
rocky tidepools at the ocean's edge. The rocks are covered in many kinds of seaweel, mussels, barnacles, and limpets, and there are purple sea urchins in the pools
April 3, 2025 at 11:37 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
I'm looking up some potential books to buy for research purposes and, uh, I think I'm going to skip this one
A screenshot of a book review that reads: For whom was this book written? The author does not say, so we will have to guess. Apparently, it is aimed at a nontechnical audience which would include sanitarians, some teachers, and local administrators. The writing is very simple, no data are exposed for analysis, and few questions are raised.
March 11, 2025 at 6:50 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Copying over notes from research annotations and very entertained by my typo here
the words 'Franch Revolution' with red dots under Franch because it should be French. Or should it?
February 19, 2025 at 4:54 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Took a wildlife tracking class this morning, and learned lots of things about footprints and scat etc, but one of the coolest was this: slugs leave tiny chomp marks behind on trees after they scrape away the lichen with their radula! 🐌🧪
A tree with smooth grayish bark (maybe a birch tree? I am bad at tree ID) with various sorts of lichen growing on it. In one spot, there are a bunch of tiny scrape marks that look like tiny claws scratched away at the lichen, leaving only the darker bark behind.
November 24, 2024 at 12:41 AM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Am I sad I didn’t manage to get a picture of her ENTIRE FACE in the tub? Yes. Did I laugh at her every single time I looked at her until she rubbed it off and then rolled around with joy? Also yes
Another picture of the gray and white dog slurping from a cheese container. There is so much cottage cheese on her face.
November 18, 2024 at 7:41 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Pigeon likes cottage cheese so much she decided to wear it on her eyebrows
A gray and white dog eating directly from a cottage cheese container. She has cheese on her nose, cheek, and eyebrows because she is so obsessed with dairy that she stuck her entire face in the container
November 18, 2024 at 7:37 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
a classic Old Bay tin, with "Now with extra crater!" and clip art of a meteor added
September 16, 2024 at 9:35 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Was running (very very slowly) up a hill along the Chesapeake Bay this morning and wondered how it got there (too south for glaciers). HOW DID I SPEND SO MUCH TIME AROUND THE BAY AS A KID AND NOT KNOW IT’S A GIANT CRATER FROM 35 MILLION YEARS AGO?? ☄️🌠🧪

(Image via Wikipedia)
A map of the Chesapeake Bay showing the impact crater from 35 million years ago. The inner rim is centered on the tip of the Delmarva peninsula and lines showing solids from the crater extend about to what I think is Richmond Virginia and north of there, but my geography isn’t great.
September 16, 2024 at 9:21 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Renewing my AGU membership and, uh, entertained? that they have not updated the phrasing of this question 🧪
Screenshot of part of a registration form. The question asks "Are you of the transgender experience?"
August 7, 2024 at 10:07 PM
eaweinberg.bsky.social
Wildfire/air scientists! There are fires in my general vicinity (I’m in Portland, there are active fires east and south of here) but the AQI is good. Why do I feel like actual death? Is it something other than the PM2.5?🔥🧪
A screenshot of the AirNow fire and air quality map, showing that the air quality in Portland is green/good, and that there are fires in Willamette National Forest and Umpqua National Forest. There are several smoke plumes on the map too, including one over Portland.
July 24, 2024 at 7:32 PM