ryan

@ryanfm.bsky.social

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bird enjoyer
ryanmandelbirder.substack.com
writing a book about nyc nature for noobs
they/them

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new newsletter post! i found the usa's only endangered dragonfly at the lake cabin i've been visiting annually with my in-laws. while i researched the dragonfly more, i learned that actually, the entire habitat surrounding the cabin was a threatened ecological community. 🧪

i found our only endangered dragonfly in a drivewayopen.substack.com the lake cabin we visit every year sits on an imperiled ecosystem and i only just realized it

i've been writing and rewriting this post for a long time and i think it's basically ready to send off into the world now - coming to terms with being an american ecotourist in the neotropics. enjoy! 🦉🪶🧪

ecoutourism in the wake of imperialismopen.substack.com a tropical coming-to-terms

i had a cerulean warbler visit my street tree! 🦉🪶🧪 ryanmandelbirder.substack.com/p/a-celebrit...

a celebrity visited my street treesryanmandelbirder.substack.com dozens of people came to visit my sidewalk this week to see my bird

aw thank you elizabeth!!

Reply to

Jen Cross

yeah - it's not like he actively told people to do it, but in publicizing every step of the wcs' attempts to recapture the bird (and tweeting "Free flaco" a bunch), i think it was clear what his intentions were.

that being said, barrett is weird but he's gotten a lot of people into birding and shapes nyc bird culture and i don't think of his intentions as being evil or anything, even if he publicizes owl locations. i just try to ignore him which is easier living in a different borough.

Reply to

Jacks 🦬🪶🐺

If poisoned rats, I hope it'll encourage people to talk to their supers and encourage that they find other methods to control rats that don't harm our urban raptors.

Reply to

Mike McNasty

a poisoned rat would be easy prey, given that it would be slower and more likely to appear in the open. it's a prevalent issue that our urban raptors face.

central park doesn't use rat poison, so it's less of a problem for hawks inhabiting the park. if a bird chooses to leave the park to feed on the streets, that's when it becomes a bigger issue.

i didn't feel comfortable sharing this on twitter where the flaco discourse can get very heated but i am pretty happy with this take so i'd like to share it somewhere 🦉🪶🧪 ryanmandelbirder.substack.com/p/flaco-is-d...

flaco is dead, long live flacoryanmandelbirder.substack.com i have a take too

hello sorry im so bad at checking this website but you should read my newest newsletter post anyway because it's cute ryanmandelbirder.substack.com/p/a-rooftop-...

a rooftop seagull romanceryanmandelbirder.substack.com happy belated valentine's day :)

when i went to costa rica back in 2022, the last stop of our trip was a walmart across from the country's biggest airport so i could see one of costa rica's most range-restricted birds. read more in my latest newsletter post: 🪶🧪🦉 ryanmandelbirder.substack.com/p/the-rare-t...

look at his little feet

rusty blackbirds are a threatened species and i rarely see more than one or two. the other day i saw 27 on long island! 🦉🪶

new newsletter entry!! this one answers the question: why are there hummingbirds in the northeast in winter? 🪶 🦉 open.substack.com/pub/ryanmand...

I'm leading a free birdwatching walk at Shirley Chisholm State Park next weekend, one of my favorite spots to look for birds in New York City. Learn more and sign up here! 🦉🪶 www.eventbrite.com/e/7597611751...

i submitted a few photos to the annual photo contest run by the island in michigan i visit each summer with my in-laws and one of them was selected as a runner up! this was my least favorite of the photos i submitted and the winner was an iphone photo. but still, yay

this is how norm gunderson must have felt when he got his duck painting picked for the three cent stamp

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ryan

one of the pleasures of the 1990s was for your parents to get a computer and brag to everyone how good their kid is at the computer, and then ask you why you like the computer so much, and tell you to get off the fucking computer every day until you moved out

cool bird thing: my friend is a guide in costa rica, and his friend found a gull - most gulls are very rare there. he sent me blurry photos, which i told him looked like lesser black-backed gull. today someone got better photos, and it was a lesser black backed, costa rica's second ever! 🦉🪶

here's the first photos. i noticed immediately that the bird had streaking on the head, yellow feet, and wing tips darker than its back. the finders thought it was a continuing kelp gull, but i told them that kelp gull should have a jet black back and no streaking. ebird.org/checklist/S1...

then here's the clincher photo. again, the streaking is especially concentrated on the nape and eyes, the back is dark but not quite black, and the wingtips are really, really long. it also has pale eyes. no other dark-backed gull has this combination of features. ebird.org/checklist/S1...

here's the gull compared to the most lesser black backed-y looking kelp gull I could find. aside from the shade of the back being wrong, the bill on the kelp gull is still bigger and more bulbous, and the eyes are closer to the forehead giving it a more bull-headed look similar to great black-backed

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ryan

Reply to

ryan

matthewhalley.wordpress.com/2022/03/29/e...

Reply to

FC_Manny

yes that one's good too!!!

this letter to the editor of The Auk by the co-founder of the boy scouts Ernest Seton makes a case against eponymous names and against scientists dictating common names more generally — in 1885. seton was problematic himself, but this shows that eponyms weren't a beloved idea, even in back then. 🪶🦉

full text here www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4...

www.jstor.org

here are some good folk names that they should give to some of the eponymous birds sabine's gull: xeme couch's kingbird: whistling tyrant (tr. from spanish) clark's nutcracker: woodpecker crow brewer's blackbird: satin bird any eponymous big shearwater: muttonbird

also they should change gray kingbird to pitirre while they're at it🦉🪶

in 1886 the american ornithological society called mckay's bunting the "polar snowflake" 🪶🦉