Richard Diamond
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richard05735604.bsky.social
Richard Diamond
@richard05735604.bsky.social
190 followers 260 following 32 posts
SoCal-L.A. Native, retired bankruptcy lawyer. BA Berkeley '72, JD UCLA '76. I was that kid with a darkroom in the garage. Travel, Nature, Wildlife, Photography, Democracy-not necessarily in that order. Oh, I like cats, too. My photos except reposts
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richard05735604.bsky.social
“Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you're put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” Vincent Van Gogh

Photos from Amsterdam 2011 and Bhutan, 2010
A man in a blue shirt intently examines a diamond through a microscope in Amsterdam An older man in a brown tunic with wide white cuffs sits at a desk concentrating on the drawing he is making. Next to him is a pot with plants bearing orange and yellow flowers. A woman wearing a white head scarf and a gold and red top works embroidering an intricate pattern on a white fabric. A woman wearing a dark blue headscarf and a red and white dress decorates a large piece of fabric using a small vessel with a gold wax liquid.
May 22, 2025 at 3:26 PM
richard05735604.bsky.social
If I cannot do great things I can do small things in a great way Martin Luther King Jr
“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day,when it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May.” Temptations
#birds #photography
Allen's Hummingbird, Grey Squirrel, BlackHeaded Grosbeak, Western Tanager-Studio City, CA 2025
An Allen's Hummingbird, with a drop of water on its beak sits on the edge of a black fountain with an out of focus background of deep green leaves and vivid purple flowers. The bird is a rufous orange color with iridescent green patches on its head and back. The bird has just completed bathing itself in the fountain. A brown and orangeish squirrel leaps on a pinecone that it is playing with A Black-headed Grosbeak peaks out from behind a branch of a green Jacaranda tree. The bird has an orange chest with yellow highlights and black and white wings. A Western Tanager stares out towards the camera. The bird is a bright yellow with an orange face and head. It has black wings with white wing bars. The bird is photographed against a blurry background of vivid red/pink flowers and sits on a slender branch with deep green, orange and red leaves.
May 8, 2025 at 5:36 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"If you're honest you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is..legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws." Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker #birds #photography
Northern Flicker, 2018
A Northern Flicker, which is a type of woodpecker with a vivid red malar stripe, like a mustache, is shown leaping off a dead tree branch with its wings spread showing its red/orange coloration.
May 8, 2025 at 12:29 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"When the chipmunk's muzzle grew more white than brown, the chipmunk forgot that she and the squirrel had had nothing to talk about. She forgot the definition of "jazz" as well and came to think of it as every beautiful thing she had ever failed to appreciate..." David Sedaris
#photography #chipmunk
A Lodgepole Chipmunk, with brown and white stripes, a curved tail and a gleaming eye blends into a gnarled oak tree's trunk.
April 8, 2025 at 6:56 PM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"The diehards-they're just going to die hard.They're not going to give in.You've got to try & convince the younger ones. They're the ones who've got to make the future." -Ella Fitzgerald
"Bluebirds Singing a song,nothing but bluebirds all day long"
Western Bluebird, Big Bear, CA 2025 #Ella
#birds
The photograph shows a Western Bluebird, in profile, sitting on a gray-white, leafless branch coming out of the trunk of a pine tree. The background is an out of focus blur of green leaves and white/gray light and shadow patterns. The Bluebird has vibrant deep indigo blue feathers covering its wings, tail and head with black feathers on it's neck and running down its upper wings. Its breast is a buff/orangeish brown color with a touch of white. The sun is striking the bird from the left making bright areas on the top of it's head and a gleam in its eye, as well as highlighting the tree trunk and the gray branch that the bird sits on.
April 5, 2025 at 5:57 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"The world in which the kestel moves, the world that it sees, is, and always will be, entirely beyond us. That there are such worlds all around us is an essential feature of our world." Mary Midgley

American Kestrel, Los Angeles 2025
#birds #Kestrel #Photography #socal #falcon
An American Kestrel, the smallest falcon in North America is photographed in 3/4 profile against a dark blue sky. The bird has a white face with a distinctive black stripe running down from its eye to its chin. Its body is a dark orange color with a darker breast and white toward its tail. The dark eye has a reflection and the bird is in an aerodynamic gliding posture.
February 26, 2025 at 12:02 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
Bird populations in N.America declined by almost 30% since 1970. "These bird losses are a strong signal that our human-altered landscapes are losing their ability to support birdlife..an indicator of a coming collapse of the overall environment." Ken Rosenberg, Cornell Lab
#birds #GBBC #photography
A red-tailed hawk with a glint in its eye glides against a dark blue sky A male Phainopepla, a black bird with a red eye and striking black crest, photographed in profile sitting atop a green leafed plant with redish branches and black seeds. A hovering Allen's Hummingbird with a green, orange and white feathers, it's eye gleaming, approaches a bright orange honeysuckle flower. A photograph of a Bewick's Wren against a black background with out of focus red branches and yellow green leaves. A small bird with a curved beak, white upper eye stripe and chin, brown, white and greyish-white breast and orangeish, brown and white striped tail.
February 23, 2025 at 7:53 PM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"I have had more than half a century of such happiness. A great deal of worry and sorrow, too, but never a worry or a sorrow that was not offset by a purple iris, a lark, a bluebird, or a dewy morning glory." Mary McCleod Bethune
#birds #Bluebird #MaryBethune #blackwomen
A close up photo of a Western Bluebird, in profile, lit by bright sun against a background turned black by deep shade. The bird has bright, deep blue feathers on its back and head, grey and white on its body and a brown/orange breast. It's dark black eye has a bright reflection.
February 14, 2025 at 6:52 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
“As I sit my eyes sweeping the canopy...I think about how we humans search for God.The tropical rain forest is the most complex thing a..human can experience..A walk in the rain forest is a walk into the mind of God.”-Birute Galdikas
#Orangutan #Borneo #nature #wildlife
Orangutan, Borneo 2012
A close up portrait of a large mail orangutan in the forest of Borneo. The orangutan is staring directly into the camera with a look of puzzlement or, perhaps doubt (OK, I'm projecting, but I remember those impressions I had during encounter distinctly.)
February 14, 2025 at 6:15 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"Fall is here. Winter's near. Need some cheer? See my rear." Yellow-rumped Warbler Poem by Rosemary Mosco
@rosemarymosco.com
#bird #birds #nature #warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler, Los Angeles 2024
While sitting on a small twig, a small bird with bright yellow patches on its head, throat, side and rump, eyes a cluster of seeds.
February 13, 2025 at 7:10 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"there comes a time when you realize that the pelican holds everything..It has the song of the thrush, the form & understanding of man, the tenderness & gentleness of the dove, the mystery & dynamic quality of the night jar, & the potential qualities of all life."Walter I. Anderson
Big Bear, CA 2022
An American White Pelican swims serenely on the dark surface of a placid lake, its rippled reflection, an abstract version of itself on the blackened water.
February 11, 2025 at 4:00 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
“We’re constantly being bombarded by problems..we can get completely overwhelmed.But we should always feel like a hummingbird.I may feel insignificant, but I don’t want to be like other animals watching the planet go down the drain.I’ll be a hummingbird, I’ll do the best I can.” Wangari Maathai
Hummingbird hovers as it approaches a bright orange flower cluster
January 30, 2025 at 5:00 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"Maybe we're fed up with moving too fast ...& being in the rat race...every single day to what end? Maybe this having been something that was considered to be a sin, is now an aspirational quality, the idea that you could be slow & that would be ok"-Lucy Cooke

Three-toed Sloth, Costa Rica 2016
Close up photo of a Three-toed sloth lying on branch high in a tree idly scratching his belly with what appears to be a contented smile.
January 18, 2025 at 7:03 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social


“There's a dragon with matches that's loose on the town
Takes a whole pail of water just to cool him down
Fire! Fire on the mountain
Fire! Fire on the mountain
Fire! Fire on the mountain
Fire! ” -Grateful Dead
#LosAngeles
#PalisadesFire #LA #LAFD
Los Angeles sunrise over smoke Mulholland Dr. 2025
Smoke filled sky with burning orange rising sun behind radio transmission tower
January 8, 2025 at 5:28 PM
richard05735604.bsky.social
“Penguins enrich our lives & livelihoods in many ways.So if they make such a great effort to thrive & protect their chicks against all odds, we can all do our part not only..to help ourselves & our planet, but..to help penguins & all wildlife.” -Pablo Borboroglu
King Penguins,South Georgia Is. 2014
A group of King Penguins curiously pecks at a photographer’s camera
January 1, 2025 at 3:25 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together, right now
Over me" -Lennon/McCartney (with inspiration from Timothy Leary and his presidential campaign)

Black Skimmers, San Joaquin Marsh, Irvine, California 2024
Two Black Skimmers, black, brown and white birds with bright orange patch on face, flying closely together.
December 31, 2024 at 2:08 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights."
-Sitting Bull

American Bald Eagle, Big Bear Lake, California 2022
A close up of an American Bald Eagle in profile looking fiercely to the left side of the picture
December 29, 2024 at 3:52 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
“Penguins are an indicator of the health of our watery planet, and if they are unable to survive, we had better take notice or we might find our own survival threatened.”
Roger Tory Peterson

Snow Hill Island, Antarctica, 2009
Emperor Penguin chick looks up at parent
December 18, 2024 at 7:14 PM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"I've always been interested in humans as well as primates. We all kind of have the same emotions, the same goals and lives really."
-Patricia Wright, Ph.D.

Coquerel's Sifaka, Ankarafantsika National Park, Madagascar
April, 2024
A Coquerel's Sifaka, which is a brown, black and white Lemur, gazes directly into the camera from its perch in a tree
December 17, 2024 at 5:40 AM
richard05735604.bsky.social
"And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves" - Virgina Woolf.

Fall at Big Bear Lake, Calif.
Great Blue Heron flying over red/orange foliage. Pied-billed Grebe, a small water bird, with mirrored reflection by orange and yellow leaves Double Crested Cormorant against flying by fall foliage. Great Egret wading along shore.
December 13, 2024 at 7:30 PM