Earth

I can't tell if these are migrating or local. In eight years here I think I've only seen one before. At first I thought it was a crow funeral in the distance, but when I got closer it was two huge trees full of them.

Two female Long Billed Thrashers. The one on the left doesnt appear to be friends with the one on the right.

• sorry for going overboard on the earthposting lately

Gulf Fritillary caterpillar, seen munching on its solitary food source, passion fruit vines. Seen earlier today at a botanical garden.

The botanical garden I went to today has a butterfly sanctuary. Got to see some beautiful butterflies.

This is Abigail the African Spurred Tortoise. 50LBS, and approx 20 years old. Will live to about 65 years of age, and grow up to about 60LBS.

She seems very friendly. When I went to the edge of her pen she came lumbering straight over to me and followed me when I changed spots to get better light. She probably thought I had treats.

shutter speed was a bit slow I think. Wings are a bit blurred.

Velella velella, little blue sail, by-the-wind sailor, is a multiorganism creature similar to jellyfish. they float on top of the water and hang tentacles into the water that have stinging cells on them. They are supposed to be mildly bothersome but not much more but I think people with allergies may react different. They come in two varieties; the sails on top are oriented two different ways. One variant the sail causes it to get pushed leftward of the wind, the other variant the sail orientation causes it to get pushed rightward of the wind. I think this is one that gets pushed rightward.

When they are just washed up they are a blueish purpleish clearish if that makes any sense. What I photographed here has been washed ashore a long time and has long since bleached out. Its consistency here is like really sun damaged cellophane plastic. I was looking for crabs and other marine life that lives in the sargassum when I found this.

heres a wikipedia link so you can see what they look like when they arent a sunbleached husk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella

This net float picked up some barnacles on its drift around the GoM. Gooseneck barnacles are deep sea creatures so this thing being covered in them means it likely spent years drifting around somewhere. The Titan Acorn barnacles were more recent additions when the float drifted near a offshore rig. The Titan Acorn barnacles are invasive species from the Pacific but are slowly becoming more common in the Gulf. The float was full of water so it probably spent some time floating in the water column, and not just on the surface.

A bivalve of some sort, Ive never seen them live, only the shells wash ashore. Sometimes the shells wash ashore with both halves intact and the beard attached but thats usually just after a really big storm.

Tar washed ashore, Gulf of Mexico. Tar seeps out of the ground naturally in places. This likely seeped out, floated to the surface and got pushed around by ocean currents for about a year before making its way here to the shore. Its underside was just lousy with goosenecks, you can see a few around the edges. The winds were gusting to 35mph yesterday so it pushed ashore some of the heavier, larger stuff that doesnt usually make it ashore.

This one kept running in and out of the swash, trying to snag minnows but not having any luck. I have a couple photos of it turned around, watching me watching it.

Seen here are Brown Pelicans, Royal Terns, Double Crested Cormorant, and I think a Laughing Gull amongst the Terns. This group of birds is pretty common to see, except sometimes there are Great Blue Herons, and a couple type of Egret.

The Cormorant on the left of the photo near the pelicans has its wings open because their feathers arent water repellent and so they have to air them out to dry so they can fly when they need to.

Herring Gull. Seen this morning out birdwatching.

One of my favorite birds to watch. They cruise about 10-12’ above the dune ridge and ride the winds coming off the Gulf. They are either cruising the currents or standing right outside the swash, watching for signs of fish to dive bomb. Early in the mornings when the fish are schooling heavily and the waves are really calm, these things gather in the dozens and dive bomb the ocean from about 30’.

https://bsky.app/profile/jocelynanderson.bsky.social/post/3mimscpvjjc2y

Some call it a jellyfish, but is actually a colony of polyps, related to sea anemone I think.

Another one of the seabirds here.

seen along the Gulf shore recently.

It must be the time of year for these to begin washing ashore en masse. I get stung by one or two a year. They are quite unpleasant.

Gooseneck barnacles attached to some floating debris.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/39756

One of the worst Western US snow droughts of the century—exacerbated by a historically warm winter and a record-shattering March heatwave—has experts increasingly worried about wildfire and water supply risks heading into the spring and summer months.

On Wednesday, the California Department of Water Resources reported "no measurable snow" recorded at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada range. Because there was some visible snow already on the ground, DWR is calling this the second-lowest April measurement on record.

The agency said this is "a stark indicator of how record‑hot March temperatures and high‑elevation rain have erased the Sierra Nevada snowpack months ahead of schedule."

"The combination of warm storms and unusually hot temperatures rapidly melted what remained of this year’s already sparse snowpack," DWR added. "Statewide, the snowpack is now just 18% of average for this date, according to the automated snow sensor network."

DWR Director Karla Nemeth said that “it feels like we skipped spring this year and dropped straight into a summer heatwave."

“What should be gradual snowmelt happened suddenly weeks ago," Nemeth added. "We’re seeing fewer, warmer storms and shorter wet seasons. Future water supplies will depend upon our ability to capture water when it’s available and manage it more efficiently.”

(Image by US Department of Agriculture)

Jeff Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, told the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday: "It didn’t snow where we needed it to snow, and where it did snow, it didn’t stick. This is going to be an ugly summer."

Oregon's iconic Crater Lake is experiencing its lowest snow water equivalent levels on record for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.

In Colorado, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data show the statewide snowpack is at just 26% of median levels as of Thursday.

“This year is on a whole other level,” Colorado State University climatologist Russ Schumacher told The Guardian. "Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning."

Last week, the Denver Board of Water Commissioners declared Stage 1 drought restrictions, a move that seeks to reduce water use by 20%.

“The snowpack within Denver Water’s collection system has deteriorated significantly and continues to decline,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of water supply. “Snowpack levels in both basins are now the lowest observed in the past 40 years, with accelerated melting underway. The conditions we are experiencing are unprecedented, and we need customers to save water to protect the supply we have right now.”

April measurements of alpine snowpacks—which are sometimes described as water savings accounts—typically indicate peak levels of water that, with spring warming, melt into reservoirs, rivers, and other bodies that help hydrate the West during the parched summer and fall months.

“March is often a big month for snowstorms,” Schumacher said. “Instead of getting snow we would normally expect we got this unprecedented, way-off-the-scale warmth.”

“This year has the potential of being way worse than any of the years we have analogues for in the past,” he added.

As University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources climate scientist Daniel Swain explained last week:

Meteorologically speaking, March 2026 will go down in the record books as the warmest March on record for at least a third, and possibly half or more, of the continental United States. But even more remarkable is the ~10 day window of peak heat during this truly exceptional March heatwave—when many, if not most, locations across the western two thirds of the United States in a broad swath stretching from the Pacific Coast in California eastward past the Mississippi River broke their all-time March monthly heat records. The margin by which March heat records were shattered was so wide that more than a handful of locations also broke their all-time April heat records, and in a few locations even tied or broke their May heat records!

“Beyond the conspicuous ‘weirdness’ of it all, the most consequential impact of our record-shattering March heat will likely be the decimation of the water year 2025-26 snowpack across nearly all of the American west," Swain warned. "The toll wrought on our 'water tower in the sky' is nothing short of shocking."

I agree. This event has been meteorologically astonishing, and its impacts will be felt long after it ends in terms of record low snowpack, sharply increased wildfire risk, and extreme low watershed runoff/streamflow into summer and beyond.

[image or embed]
— Daniel Swain (@weatherwest.bsky.social) March 25, 2026 at 2:25 PM

The National Interagency Fire Center is among those projecting above-normal fire risk throughout the American West in the coming months.

“Unless there’s a major change in the weather patterns and we somehow pull out some sort of miracle springtime precipitation, we’re looking at an extended fire season,” Joel Lisonbee, senior associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, told The Guardian.

In addition to the risk of drought and wildfire, low water levels threaten wildlife, including California's flagging salmon runs—which are also imperiled by Trump administration actions including habitat disruption caused by water flow manipulation.

“No sooner do we start to gain a little ground back in rebuilding our salmon runs, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is destroying them again,” Vance Staplin, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, told The Sacramento Bee last week. "These fish are in big trouble if the bureau doesn’t relent very soon.”

Scientists have long warned that planetary heating driven by human burning of fossil fuels will result in longer and more frequent snow droughts. One 2020 study showed how the Western United States is fast becoming a "global snow drought hot spot," with the length of such dry spells increasing by 28% between 1980 and 2018.

“Climate change is going to result in a lot of these extreme events worsening,” Clark University climatologist Abby Frazier told The Guardian on Thursday. "It is heartbreaking to see it all playing out as we have predicted for so long. The changes we have teed up for ourselves are going to be catastrophic.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

One of my favorite spots to go fishing, this was a 400’ rail bridge built in 1940. Hurricanes in ‘61, ‘67, and 2017 killed most of whats left of the bridge and rendered it unwalkable . the water here is maybe knee deep at most. Lots of Rainbow Trout, Redfish, and Hardhead catfish here.

There are a couple American Coots on whats left of the bridge further into the distance.

Destroyed by Harvey back in 2017 and left to rot. The waters edge is about 1 pace away from the house slab, or whats left of it.

sierraclub

Created by Congress in 1978, the Endangered Species Committee (AKA “God Squad”) is a body with the power to approve projects – even if the action would lead to the eventual elimination of a specific wildlife species. The committee is commonly referred to as the "God Squad" because it has the power to decide if an imperiled species that is protected by the Endangered Species Act should live or die. In essence, it has the ability to “play god” with wildlife already on the brink of extinction.

In a recent legal filing, it became clear that the committee was convened solely by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. According to the filing, this action was invoked due to national security concerns in the effort to justify the move to seek an exemption for all oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act.

Other news reports say that no industry asked them to do this so it's just a red meat thing for the base.