Fish, ferns, and fungus

@fishsqueezer.bsky.social

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Colton Finch, IDL Biologist (gmail is nativefishes). Fan of ecology, outdoor recreation, reading, & my family. Alum of Arizona, Florida, almost USU. He/him, opinions mine.
ALT
pfp: my eyes through albo Monstera fenestrations
banner: tote full of bull trout

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The showy milkweed out by the mailbox is absolutely lousy with pollinators this morning. #nativeplants 🌱🌿🌎 #虫

It's been a while since I banged this drum, but if you have a case of the Mondays and want to take a break for a minute, the Miami coral reef camera is incredibly busy and beautiful right now. Also, unlike bird feeder cameras, there is no artificial feeding here. 🐟🌎 www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i8A...

I found the most amazing bedrock pothole. It is in a shady spot connected to a seep so the walls are wet and completely covered in moss and miniature plants and the rocks inside are so smooth and the water is so clear. I'm confident it's a fairy swimming pool. #hydrology #nativeplants

Cool beans 🫘 (please forgive me, I'm a dad many times over) Read the whole thread and relish its details, it's fascinating.

A few years back I made a hybrid between these two bean varieties. My blue bush-bean is at right and Wit-rood boontje (Dutch: "White-red bean") on the left.

Toaster planter progress! @erikaswyler.bsky.social ... with a slightly better view of the seedlings. Sunflowers, nasturtiums, poppies, maybe some other things too. Uh, and chili pepper powder to keep the squirrel away.

Update: the flowers only last one day! Ephemeral beauties full of honeybees. I can't help but think how to the mountains around me, people only last one day. Make the world better for your one day. 🌱

The row of Hungarian blue breadseed poppies in my garden started blooming this morning. They're gorgeous, but my broken eyes can't see any blue. Find the hidden pollinator!

There is some kind of longhorn beetle absolutely VIBING in the anthers of my Easter lily cactus flower. I can't ID it because the pollen makes it look like a beetle-shaped Cheeto™️, but can you IMAGINE what it would be like to be this beetle? Just rolling in a giant funnel of your favorite food. #虫 🌱

Yesterday's adventure in non-native urban fish survey hell concluded in one tiny final pool below a culvert that had THREE different exotic species vying for supremacy in it, haha. Bullfrog, rainbow trout, and green sunfish. 🐍🐟🌎

The row of Hungarian blue breadseed poppies in my garden started blooming this morning. They're gorgeous, but my broken eyes can't see any blue. Find the hidden pollinator!

Above the waterfalls on that stream from yesterday there were no fish, and giant predatory stoneflies ruled the earth.

Bedrock controlled streams are the best, full stop. Let the fluvial geomorphologists have their sediment, give me granitic intrusions all day long. Wonderful survey today ended in a stunningly beautiful non-native brook trout. 🐟 #hydrology

Traced our steps back to the truck after the survey today and discovered a very good and big forest boi has been investigating our tracks. 🦊

Can I offer you a wild strawberry in this trying time?

After I took this big winter-blooming Dendrobium to my local orchid club, some smarty-farties there explained that those ruffled petals means it's probably not D. nobile (as it was labeled by the seller). I don't know who to believe, but it's flowering again during a midsummer identity crisis. 🌱

I've only recently gotten into orchids and last summer I got this white Dendrobium nobile from a plant sale. I've been following winter care instructions (which was made easier by keeping it in my snowbird parents' empty house at 50 F), and it has rewarded me. 🌱

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Fish, ferns, and fungus

Scraper accounts seem to be on the rise, so here's a list if you want to block them all. Feel free to report suspicious accounts to me, but do NOT tag/quote them. If they're alerted to my presence and block me in advance, I can't do anything (at least with bsky interface). bsky.app/profile/fran...

Content Scrapers

List by @franzanth.bsky.social

Scrapers are accounts that steal and post generic "interesting content" from the internet (cats! space! nature!), often with misleading captions, without crediting the creators. Their aim is to gain as many followers as possible to promote their own products or sell the accounts to brands/celebs.

I need help. I thought I would let the top of my cherry tree grow so that the robins and other wildlife can have some fruit and I would just pick what I could reach from the ground or a ladder. HOWEVER, my relatively young tree has decided to ONLY set fruit at the top. Is this my typical future? 🌱

Ooh, ooh, the inexorable march of time zones means I still have 42 minutes of Frog Day left. I think I'm banned from the herp feed, but just in case: 🐍 FORG

I GOT ONE MINUTE HAPPY FROG DAY WITH A RIO GRANDE CHIRPING FROG 🌿🐸

@maxwaughphoto.bsky.social Has anyone seen this buffalo since it was first born? I remember your trip report said you missed it and you were worried it died immediately. www.npr.org/2024/06/27/n...

For Native Americans, the birth of a rare white bison is a blessing and a warningwww.npr.org A rare white-colored buffalo calf was born in Yellowstone National Park this spring. It's interesting for tourists, but many Native Americans see it as the fulfillment of a prophecy.

There has understandably been a lot of hubbub about how terrible Google's AI is at returning valid/correct results. However, let me remind those of you that weren't following me on Twitter that Google has been summarizing and serving internet garbage for many years. This one from 2019. 🐟

Look at this Weasley-ass three-story tree fort I found in the woods. This is more than just a collection of building violations, it has miniblinds and a wood stove! I can't imagine the crushing/immolation nightmares I would experience if I tried to camp out in this bad boy for the night. 😬

I'm stunned. Painted lady butterflies, which are bugs*, can migrate from Africa to South America. Over 4,000 km. A bug. Passing between hemispheres across an ocean. Putting Columbus to shame. www.zmescience.com/ecology/anim... *I know they're not Hemipterans but like...they're bugs, not whales. #虫

These incredible butterflies migrate over the Atlanticwww.zmescience.com These delicate yet resilient insects have been found to traverse an astonishing distance of over 4,200 kilometers from West Africa to the coast of South America.

I began my 🐟 survey today working in a postcard. Then the middle part of the survey was a fishless, mosquito-infested hell, one of the most intolerable places I've ever been. I ended the survey further downstream in cutthroat paradise where they thankfully had eaten all the mosquitos. 🌎 #虫 🌿

My mini carnivorous plant bog is Doing Things. 🌱

New color swatch just dropped - canola field outside Moscow Idaho. 🌱

Driving through the Palouse and wait, is this where the Windows logo came from, or was that the next ridge over? I can't tell. All these hilly dryland wheat fields look the same. 🌱

I so rarely have photos of myself in the woods. I'm always the one taking pictures, but my coworker captured this image of me electrofishing to map 🐟 occupancy in central Idaho today. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Look how pretty the new growth is on my loquat tree! I've grown this from a tiny mail-ordered cutting for the last three years. If it doesn't flower this fall, I'm getting rid of it. It's a pain the ass to move a tree this big indoors every winter and treat it for pests. 🤞🌱

Driving through the Palouse and wait, is this where the Windows logo came from, or was that the next ridge over? I can't tell. All these hilly dryland wheat fields look the same. 🌱

She feeds her pet medicinal leech her own blood after letting it chew through her skin. Amazing dedication and self control; I'm rarely this surprised and delighted by something. #虫

LEECH Q&A SESSION!!! I'm feeding my son tonight, ask me any questions you have about him!

My 🐟 surveys this week turned up empty, which means a lot more logs are going to the mill. But I got to see some great wildflowers! 🌱🌿 #nativeplants

This cool mesic plant is false hellebore, Veratrum californicum. Supposedly poisonous, but cows don't seem to mind. I love the pleated leaves! It is a synchronous bloomer, but I have no idea how they coordinate. These ones are mast seeding despite moderate to severe drought. 🌱🌿🌎 #nativeplants