Harley Winfrey
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harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Harley Winfrey
@harleywinfrey.bsky.social
280 followers 380 following 350 posts
he/him
Professional birdwatcher. No really.
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harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office: Setting up solar-powered game cameras to monitor Burrowing Owls! Nye County, Nevada 🦉 🪶 🌕 🌵
Sunrise and moonset in the Mojave Desert. Pink and pale blue sky, distant mountains, a full moon hanging just above the horizon, and scattered creosote and rabbitbrush in the foreground
November 5, 2025 at 3:30 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Via @elizhargrave.bsky.social 's newsletter. This is exactly how I feel about bird photography. Comic by @buttpoems.bsky.social 🪶
A simple 4-panel comic titled "Embarrassing" showing an artist drawing while sitting next to flowers and pollinators. Panel 1 says, "I am not a good enough artist to capture the beauty around me" Panel 2 says, "But the act of trying to capture it forces me to observe it more closely" Panel 3 says, "And that observation reveals new depths to the beauty I'm failing to capture" and Panel 4 shows the artist smiling and says, "It is an extremely pleasant form of perpetual failure". Below the comic it's signed "Buttpoems"
October 7, 2025 at 5:55 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Ahh there's even some food description in this section!
Screenshot from "The Coming of the Bear" section of The Crystal Caverns by Mary Stewart with a mouth-watering description of Welsh mutton. Yes chef!
September 22, 2025 at 2:57 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
According to the Haikubox in my yard, my Chuck-Will's-Widow neighbors have been calling close to 3,000 times a night! Hickory County, Missouri 🪶 🍃 🔬
Screenshot of Haikubox app showing over 20,000 detection of calling Chuck-Will's-Widows in my yard--all since April 12!
May 14, 2025 at 2:16 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office: Out in the desert before sunrise for burrowing owl surveys, Nye County, Nevada 🦉 🪶
Sunrise on the Amargosa Valley in southern Nevada. Creosote and desert pavement in the foreground, a lightening sky above bare, rocky mountains in the background
April 7, 2025 at 1:37 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office: Moonset at sunrise. Clark County, Nevada 🌑
A full moon partially hidden by clouds hangs low in the morning sky. Yuccas in the foreground contrast with distant pine trees on the Spring Mountains
March 15, 2025 at 8:12 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
We need more biologists to help green energy projects follow environmental rules. I've been doing this kind of work for 17 years and it's fun and rewarding. 🪶 🐢 🐍 🍃 🌎
February 23, 2025 at 10:28 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
age yourself with a movie you saw in the theater as a kid 🎬
Poster for E.T. The Extra-terrestrial with ET and Elliott touching fingers in the foreground and riding a bike in front of the full moon in the background. No reason to look up what year it came out, right?
December 12, 2024 at 2:15 AM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
I've reached the 20-movie mark for 2024. Here's my rankings so far:
Still planning to see a few more, including Flow and War of the Rohirrim this weekend! 🎬 📽 #Letterboxd
Letterboxd screenshot showing my favorite movies of 2024: The Wild Robot, Wicked, Greatest Night in Pop, Look Back, Miyazaki and the Heron, Thelma, Jim Henson Idea Man, Dune Part 2, Furiosa, Lisa Frankenstein, Challengers, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Drive-away Dolls, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Love Lies Bleeding, My Old Ass, Beatles '64, Snack Shack, Damsel, Mean Girls
December 10, 2024 at 11:19 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
I saw my #600 Black Swift, then Western Flycatcher got lumped, then saw #600 Greater Pewee, then the Redpolls got lumped. Looking forward to seeing a third #600 soon! 🪶
ebird screenshot of US map. 599 species observed, 1029 checklists ebird screenshot of Missouri map. 261 species, 288 checklists ebird map of Hickory County. 134 species, 81 checklists. I'm still #1 for the county even though I haven't lived there for 6 years.
December 10, 2024 at 9:26 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office: a Common Poorwill feather! Exciting to know that one or more are in torpor nearby, sleeping away the desert winter. Clark County, Nevada 🪶
A hand holds a small feather, probably a secondary wing feather. It has a broad, snow-white tip, and horizontal barring of dark brown and tan becoming lighter along the shaft. In the background, there is a large Mojave Yucca and the snow-dusted Spring Mountains.
December 10, 2024 at 4:25 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
My #boardgame plays in November. First time plays of Charcuterie, Command of Nature, and Undergrove. Undergrove was my favorite. You know it's a good game when you keep thinking about it for days afterward! 🍄♟️
Screenshot of the BG Stats app, listing the 14 games I played in November. We started an Exit Advent Calendar and that was my most-played game with 4 sessions.
December 4, 2024 at 5:28 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office: a Loggerhead Shrike's larder! Looks like a Desert Stink Beetle, impaled on a Mojave Yucca by a butcher bird. Clark County, Nevada 🪶 🍃 🪲
An all-black beetle pierced by the sharp leaf of a yucca. Its front legs appear to be in a "shrug" pose, as in "What can a mere beetle do against the might of a predatory songbird with a hook-tipped bill? Guess I'll die."
December 3, 2024 at 3:52 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
It works! I got my QLL library card today, and Libby immediately lit up with books from my wishlist. One was by @feliciadavin.com and I first heard about QLL from her newsletter, so this might be the least lucrative payola scheme I've heard of. 😂

But please do support QLL!
🌈 📚 📘
Libby screenshot from the Queer Liberation Library of the beautiful cover of Felicia Davin's Thornfruit, a book my local library doesn't carry.
November 25, 2024 at 9:16 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Throwback Thursday: 11 years ago today, still my closest encounter with a Spotted Skunk, at Snow Canyon State Park in Utah.
🍃📷 #wildlife #photography
Facebook screenshot from November 21, 2013, of a Western Spotted Skunk in low light. The caption reads "This skunk paid a visit to our campsite just after sunset. It wasn't shy at all, it flicked its tail a few times but thankfully it never did a handstand."
November 21, 2024 at 6:08 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Bird Job Posting: "Hiring experienced bird banders (experience with MAPS protocol preferred) March 1 through May 30, 2025 on Rota in Northern Mariana Islands. Job posting here: $3300/month + flights. birdpop.org/docs/jobs/IB... "
I worked for IBP a few (ok 14) years ago and they are a great org. 🪶🍃🌍
Photo of a Mariana Fruit-Dove in hand with a silver BBL band on its right leg. This is a really cool-looking dove with red forehead and bright yellow-orange belly. The text says "Cool job alert! Want to band awesome birds like the Mariana Fruit-Dove on a tropical Island?"
October 31, 2024 at 12:45 AM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Nevada automatically sends all registered voters mail ballots and text message receipts. There's no reason (except vote suppression) why every state couldn't do this. Another example of inequality in our election system. 🗳 ☑️ 🇺🇸
Text message screenshots from the Nevada Secretary of State. Saturday, Oct 19: "Your ballot has been scanned by USPS" Friday, Oct 25: "Your ballot has been received by election officials"
October 28, 2024 at 4:36 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Camping out near #todaysoffice to avoid a long drive home or an expensive hotel. Slept on a cot under the stars among the Joshua trees in Esmerelda County, Nevada ⛺️ 🌟 🌔
A nighttime desert landscape with bright gibbous moon in upper right, faint stars through wispy clouds, and silhouetted joshua trees
October 14, 2024 at 2:51 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office: Nye County, Nevada. It feels like the first day of fall, with rain and cold winds blowing in! Seems appropriate with only 2 weeks left in the baseball season. (Go Royals!) 📷 🍃🍂 🌎 ⚾️
A rather spectacular sagebrush sunrise. The light on the clouds ranges from deep red through orange and yellows to cool blue. Distant mountains still lie in the province of night. A sturdy wooden fencepost is in the foreground.
September 16, 2024 at 3:25 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office. I love the desert, even though it's prickly! 🍃 🌵 🌎 📷
Close-up on a heart-shaped Prickly Pear pad, with a Joshua Tree in the background
September 10, 2024 at 1:42 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office mate: a well-camouflaged Speckled Rattlesnake in Esmerelda County, Nevada
🐍 🦎 🍃 🌎 📷
Overhead view of a Speckled Rattlesnake curled up beneath a shrub. The snake's tan and chocolate brown pattern blend in well with the sagebrush scrub and sand habitat. Thankfully there was no need to relocate it and we were able to leave this beautiful animal in its cozy spot!
September 6, 2024 at 2:33 AM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Today's office: not bad for a substation!
Clark County, Nevada 🍃 📷 🌎
Sunrise photo with vertical lens arc, dark clouds overhead, yucca in foreground of desert landscape with distant mountain range. Yes there's electrical towers in a substation but if you have poor eyesight like me you can pretend they're Joshua Trees or something
August 28, 2024 at 4:22 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
My methodology:
Lived here - had a mailing address
Stayed here - had a job there for at least a month
Visited here - slept here; camped out in all but Puerto Rico!
Stopped here - visited a park or refuge
Passed here - just drove through (it was the middle of the night!)
#WildlifeBiologist
Color-coded simplified map of the US. Top line says US Level 173. Lived Here: AK, CA, NV, AZ, WY, ND, NE, KS, TX, IA, MO, WI, FL. Stayed Here: ID, CO, MN, LA, IL, IN, PA. Visited Here: WA, OR, UT, MT, NM, SD, OK, AR, MI, OH, KY, TN, MS, AL, GA, ME, NY, NJ, DE, DC, VA, NC, PR. Stopped Here: HI, WV, MD, MA, NH. Passed Here: SC. Never Been Here: VT, CT, RI, VI, GU, MP, AS.
August 26, 2024 at 9:31 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
My most recent five-star movies watched 🎥 🎬
A Letterboxd screenshot. August - The Last Waltz (1978), The Greatest Night in Pop (2024). July - Oppenheimer (2023). June - Ikiru (1952), M (1931), Laapataa Ladies (2023), The Muppet Movie (1979), Jim Henson Idea Man (2024)
August 23, 2024 at 6:42 PM
harleywinfrey.bsky.social
Tonight's office: sunset from Pilot Peak, Mineral County, Nevada 📷🌎🌿
Cloudy mountain sunset with a color gradient from red through orange, yellow, and dark blue. The mountains are lightly clad in sparse pinyons and junipers, with distant Sierra peaks of Yosemite on the horizon.
August 16, 2024 at 1:40 AM