mothballs and tumbling weeds @mothballsandtumbleweeds - Tumblr Blog

This set took a lot longer than usual because making art has been a struggle the last few weeks, but I'm hoping that's over now.

These guys are on the yellow alert list:

Black Scoter

Reddish Egret

Wandering Tattler

Pinyon Jay

Shop originals, prints, and commissions

Or check out my art in person at Homer's Coffee Shop in Overland Park, Kansas later this week! I'm hoping to have it up by Wednesday, and it'll be there through late July.

thisauthorisscreaming

Does it count as 'sword in the stone' if it looks more like 'sword in the cairn'...?

crushthewiredwaysblog

The pigeons on my windowsill:

I never meant to make an altar out of my windowsill.

But there I was, every morning, spreading seed

like a prayer I didn't know I was saying.

Ten small bodies lining up—

quiet, soft,

the world's most fragile choir.

White like fallen clouds, red like warm clay, grey mottled like

thunderstorms that haven't learned how to break.

And him—

My favourite—

the runt, the tremble, the crooked-beaked little heartbeat

who looked like he'd been assembled in a hurry

by hands too gentle to finish the job.

He was never afraid of me.

Today,

I came home to a scatter of feathers

to a stillness that didn't belong

and a red kite—

a hunger—

kneeling over a body that should have been a sky.

And all I could think

was that I did this.

And that I lined them up

like soft offerings

taught them that

waiting was safe, that

hunger could be answered by a human hand

reaching through a window.

I made them easy

I made them sweet

And now the garden is too quiet.

And he has not come to tell me that he is alive.

And I don't know if the feathers were his.

And I don't know if he slipped free

on the last syllable of the wind.

God, I hope he did.

I hope he flew away—

wings bright with terror,

beating the air into a promise:

not today, not today

not today.

And still—

My hands shake with guilt.

And, somehow,

love feels like this:

soft seed on a windowsill,

a heartbeat trusting yours,

and the sudden, awful knowledge

that you cannot keep anything safe,

no matter how gently you hold it.

But if he lives—

if he returns—

I will still put out seed.

Because my love is not a cage.

And my kindness is not a trap.

And even in this unforgiving city

something beautiful might still happen.

I will wait for him.

I will wait

the way the morning waits for light

to remember how to rise

herpsandbirds

Indian Bullfrog (Hoplobatrachus tigerinus), mating, family Dicroglossidae, India

In the breeding season, the males turn bright yellow.

photographs by Gursewak Singh

longingforrotkehlchen

I really like that last shot. I'd hang it if I had a wall.

Schafstelze ♂️ (western yellow wagtail) in Ob den Bachhalden, Mühlhausen.

ilikeloons

ORB OF BORB

hideki-koga

サンコウチョウ（Japanese Paradise Flycatcher）

hatoxee

Cute and speckled 🌸🪽

holespoles

"Shimmering night" by Inaslind.

sheahuntphotography

I got out to the man-made lake around 4:30AM that morning. The sky was still fading away from pink.

I spotted a few exciting birds: double-crested cormorants, red-necked grebes, bonaparte's gulls...as well as grackles, coots, geese, and blackbirds a plenty.

I spent a good couple hours that morning, just after dawn, trudging around the lake and taking photographs.

When suddenly! Not just a lifer, but a pair of them: two regal, majestic, black-crowned night herons..

Easily spooked, and prone to doing their fishing in the early mornings while camouflaged in the tall grasses and reeds surrounding the water, these two did not make it easy on me..

And so...I saw a Black-Crowned Heron, and this is all I have to show for it 😭 Had to have a little laugh about it!

herpsandbirds

American Oystercatchers (Haematopus palliatus), parents and chicks, family Haematopodidae, order Charadriiformes, FL, USA

photographs by William Steele

yujateaandpi

Was driving with my grandmother and in broken English she says “no eyes… no nose… no face. Don’t trust.” To which I looked around wildly in search of this omen of ill portend.

Cybertruck. It was a cybertruck.