Luminiferous Aether
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luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Luminiferous Aether
@luminiferousaether.bsky.social
130 followers 260 following 85 posts
An occasional birder, a constant reader, and a general dork.
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luminiferousaether.bsky.social
More tide pools! #invertibrates #pnw
A barely inundated sandy pool, a shank of sea weed floating across the foreground. Rock surrounds the left and upper sides of the frame with orange, red and purple starfish clinging, plus green anemones. A shallow tide pool full of green anemones and purple something. A small bit of seaweed clings to the center. Bits of shell are stuck to anemones out of the water.
June 28, 2025 at 2:04 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Enjoyed this moody morning’s low tide. I always feel much sympathy for the starfish clinging to the rocks waiting for water to return.
#pnw #intervertibrates #beach
A foggy beach scene, some yellow sand in the foreground giving way to wet black rock. A single orange starfish clings partway up. Oysters, barnacles and sea plants cover the farther rocks. In the far background, a seagull perches on a rock island. A rock peeking out of the sand is covered in barnacle-ridden oysters. Under a slight overhang, purple and orange starfish cling to the rock surface. Some seaweed is visible in the foreground. A black rock wall is visible through fog in the background.
June 22, 2025 at 6:31 PM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Cats aren’t the only thing that love catmint. It’s reliably the most popular plant in my garden this time of year. #bloomscrolling
A Hunt’s bumble bee visits a purple flower on a large catmint plant. A Hunt’s bumble bee flies between blossoms on a catmint plant. The bee is large and fuzzy yellow with a thick orange horizontal stripe across its back, black shoulders and black face and limbs.
June 13, 2025 at 9:14 PM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
It’s too early for native bees here, but I’m so excited for them to be back in my garden. Sweat bees are beautiful, but I love my big goofy bumblebees especially.
April 18, 2025 at 12:29 PM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
If you see this, quote from flowers in your gallery.

Bee balm with a Great Northern Bumblebee. #gardening
A purple bee balm blossom with a large black and yellow Great Northern Bumblebee pollenating it.
February 17, 2025 at 1:48 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
I went looking for a nice throwback picture of our senior cat and found…a picture of him napping in the sun that could have been taken yesterday. Cats like to nap at all ages, it turns out.
A long-haired tabby sleeps sprawled in the sun on a brown leather chair. His eyes are closed and his front paws with toe beans visible near the camera.
January 25, 2025 at 5:29 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
I was very distracted on my run today taking pictures of the amazing hoarfrost.
A landscape plant with green leaves shows directionality of the frost growth. Brown oak leaves still clinging to a tree with edges lined in white, spikes of frost growing from edges and especially branches. A dried weed poking above unmown grass along a ditch is covered in what looks like thorns of white frost.
January 5, 2025 at 8:37 PM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
So do we think that #walmart and #ge are knowingly doing a wink-wink Fourteen Words or did a white supremacist at one of the orgs just slip it past people who should know better?
An aisle display at Walmart for remote controls and cables. The display box is GE-branded with a large $14.88 on the box. Above is a Walmart Everyday Low Price placard bearing the same dog-whistle neo-Nazi number.
December 17, 2024 at 4:10 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Age yourself with a movie you saw in the theater.
A clip from Weekend at Bernies: Bernie lies propped on a chaise lounge, a drink in his hand, sunglasses covering his eyes and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Larry (Andrew McCarthy) is cheerfully waving to someone offscreen as he pulls a cord, raising Bernies arm in an approximation of a wave.
December 12, 2024 at 2:38 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
It’s cold and snowy, which means I’m looking back through old insect photos, like this cool little milkweed bug.
#insect #bug
A close up of an immature milkweed seed pod with an oval bug on it. The forewings are mostly black with red triangles meeting at a point in the middle of the bug’s body, two small white dots and white edges.
December 10, 2024 at 6:56 PM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Found these little guys while at a U-cut Christmas tree lot. #fungifriends
An array of small mushrooms with light brown caps and darker stalks grow out of a mossy ground cover interspersed with dead stalks of grass. Fine spider webs line the undersides of two mushrooms.
December 4, 2024 at 3:12 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
One of the things I love about the PNW (coming from a place with much less water) is how moss and mushrooms are growing everywhere - like on top of this post on a footbridge. #fungifriends #moss
A wet wooden post is topped with green moss and six small pinkish-red mushroom fruiting bodies. Out of focus in the background is a riot of other growing things.
November 28, 2024 at 5:26 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Look at this goofy new-to-me creature! We at first assumed a sea cucumber, but apparently it is a totally different animal called, appropriately, a sea pickle.
An oblong translucent pink creature lying on on the sand where it has washed up. It is covered in knobbly protrusions.
November 27, 2024 at 6:43 PM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Oh no!
A yellow leaf on asphalt. It has two brown dots like eyes and a hole in the center in the shape of a screaming mouth.
November 18, 2024 at 4:52 AM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
Some sunshine for a grey day.
A sunflower in a garden. A green sweat bee is collecting bright yellow pollen from the stamen.
November 15, 2024 at 3:10 PM
luminiferousaether.bsky.social
This may be the lowest stakes one in the list, but it still feels deeply weird
December 30, 2023 at 9:13 PM