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Some days, checking the lake is my only motivation to get up and get going in the morning. #ducksmakemehappy #ebird #patch #wherearethewarblers #nashvillethebeautiful (at Dickson, Tennessee)

#ducksmakemehappy #ebird #wherearethewarblers #patch #nashvillethebeautiful

zsl-edge-of-existence

Kea are known for being utterly fearless around humans. This can be both a blessing and a curse; on the one hand, many tourists fall in love with the kea’s comical antics. On the other, this fearlessness combined with the parrot’s natural curiosity has led them to cause significant damage to property. Kea have been known to rifle through clothes, open backpacks, strip windshield wipers and rubber sealant from cars. They are also unrepentant thieves, flying away with anything that catches their fancy. One kea flew through the open window of a camper van, making away with a bag containing $900 of a tourist’s money. And a Scottish tourist got the shock of his life when a kea flew off with his passport! The tourist in question stated: “My passport is somewhere out there in Fiordland. The kea’s probably using it for fraudulent claims or something. I’ll never look at a kea in the same way.”

birdstudies

February 2, 2017 - Blue-headed Quail-dove (Starnoenas cyanocephala)

Endemic to Cuba, these doves were once common, but are now found only in a few areas of the country. Foraging mostly in leaf litter, they eat seeds, berries, and small arthropods. They spend much of their time in pairs and only fly rarely to escape from predators or call from a low perch. Territorial during the breeding season, they defend an area around their nests, which are built on tree trunks near the ground from loose twigs and fresh leaves. Males mostly incubate the eggs during the day and females usually incubate them at night. They are classified as Endangered by the IUCN due to hunting and habitat destruction. Introduced predators, extreme weather, and climate change may be additional threats to their population.

New addition to the family this week. She's supposedly a half Arabian half Tennessee Walker. But we think she might be a Rocky Mountain Walking Horse. Whatever she is, she is beautiful and the sweetest. Anyone have a good name suggestion?

#horses #arabian #tennessee #walkinghorse #oddfarm #adoptdontshop #savedfromthefeedlot

Rant #2

The breaking point that made me so scared for the country happened just a couple weeks ago, mid-January, while working as a cashier in Dickson, TN. I women came to the register and I asked her how she was and she replied. Growing up, the only language my family spoke in the house was English. My grandfather spoke Spanish but not really around the family too much. So I speak English very clearly, I have no accent. A co-worker once told me I speak like a newscaster. After the monetary exchange between this woman and myself she asked me if I was Hindu. I politely responded with an explanation, that I was not Hindu but that I was from Florida. This was not a sufficient answer for her. She prodded me with where my parents were from and I told her. Then she prodded me some more about my extended family. I said we were all from Florida and that we are all American. She kept insisting that I was some kind of “inuin” which I assumed she meant “Indian”, but it hard to tell through her ignorance and southern accent. I finally said that I was just a regular American like her. She looked up at me with the saddest face and said, “Oh honey, it’s so sad that you don’t know what your heritage is.” The fury in me could no longer be contained and I quickly responded with, “I do know my heritage, you just don’t like the answer.” She wasn’t sure what to say to that and she quickly changed the subject from me to her. She explained that she was part Cherokee or some other Native American. But I no longer wanted to listen or be apart of the conversation, because I really didn’t care where she thought she came from either. She clearly would never see us as equals.

Why is it that I can’t be American?

Why did this woman not see me as equal to her?

Why is it that people of color automatically get a label from society?

#notmypresident #dontlabelme #american #newamerica #equality #resistrump #diaryofamadtanwoman

fuckyeahbackpacking

Kalalau Trail, July 2015

salasphorus

One of my favorite spots ever. I miss this place.

#kauai #luckywelivekauai

as-warm-as-choco

The French Netflix uploaded this on twitter…….

starsthatburn

this is by far the most powerful thing I’ve seen since Trump won and everyone needs to see this

#notmypresident

buzzfeed

People Are Using “Nevertheless, She Persisted” To Share Examples Of Badass Women

usfwspacific

Ducks, ducks, everywhere! Wildlife wins with collaborative farming program on Umatilla NWR

By Brent Lawrence

Have you ever wondered what 70,000 ducks looks like? Well, now you know.

This video was taken Dec. 20, 2016, at the McCormack Unit on the Oregon side of Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge. This field is located close to the Columbia River.

At the time this video was taken, 50,000 to 70,000 ducks were regularly moving back and forth from the river to feed in the field, which contained a crop of winter wheat and buckwheat. The ducks were primarily mallards, but there were numerous northern pintails. (And one very fast-moving Brewer’s blackbird that wanted to get a cameo appearance on the video.)

This was a significant number of waterfowl being supported by a single 125-acre farm field, which sustained the high number of ducks every night for two weeks. The field is part of a cooperative farming program between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Mid-Columbia River Complex and local farmers that provides food sources to waterfowl during the critical winter season.

This is an important program because it gives waterfowl nutrition on their migration south. This food source on refuges is more important than ever because of changing land use across the nation, which includes: 1) once-productive farm fields being developed into housing or other non-farming uses; 2) crops being harvested earlier in the year or left standing; and 3) new types of crops being planted that are less beneficial to waterfowl.

That’s where this collaborative conservation effort comes in. Through the cooperative farming program, local farmers grow corn, wheat and other crops on the refuge. In return, the farmer leaves a portion of the crops in the field for wildlife. At Umatilla National Wildife Refuge, for example, there are about 1,400 acres of irrigated cropland in the cooperative farming program.

“This is a great win-win for the refuge and the farmers,” said Charlie Stenvall, project leader for the Mid-Columbia River Complex. “Cooperative or contract farming helps us meet our migratory bird conservation mission. The large wintering populations of ducks and geese here, for which the refuges provide significant habitat and food resources, also provide good opportunities for waterfowl hunters and birders, which adds important dollars to the local economy.”

Keep reading

The problem with this is, that the environment is a bank. Just not for money. We need a reserve of clean water and clean air. The government doesn’t like to put a monetary value on the environment, because then it makes it harder for them to destroy it and easier for the public to not care. We should save the environment because without it, there wouldn’t be any banks, any money or any people. If that’s not terrifying to you than you should wake up.

#climatechange #environment #resist #resisttrump #climatefacts #conservation

Rant #1

The first “interaction” of the year (2017) was actually New Year’s Eve. A had a good friend from Colorado come to visit Nashville with her boyfriend. We went out to dinner and then went out for a couple more beers on the downtown strip. We ended up at the Beer Seller and the boys wanted to play pool. So we hooked up with another couple and their third wheel at the pool tables. The boys played pool and us girls drank and had a great conversation about life and everything that it wrong with the world. At the end of the third round of pool the third wheel came up to the table and said to me “You look like you have some culture in you. Where are you from?” I knew exactly where this was going and I already had had three beers so I my sassy response was “Why? Because I’m tan?” I didn’t want to deal with it. I didn’t know this good old boy dressed up in an all VOLS outfit so I felt no need to explain anything to him. He responded with excuses about how he wasn’t trying to be racist and that he thought I was Egyptian because knew someone who knew someone that was Egyptian and that he had been to Egypt and whatever whatever whatever. Luckily he seemed to get the hint that I didn’t want to talk to him about anything and my boyfriend and I left shortly after that.

I’d like to know what it means to “look like you have some culture in you” first of all; since “culture” actually has nothing to do with the way a person looks. This kind of ignorance is just unacceptable I my opinion. It’s one thing to ask where someone is from and start a conversation that way, but never have I asked someone what his or her culture is.

#diaryofamadtanwoman #notmypresident #dontlabelme #american #newamerica #resisttrump

Wise, known for her collaborations with Kendrick Lamar, says the idea for the purple-lit video came to her during an "incredible" pedicure.

theforbiddenplastic

Both are true and his supporters are willing to overlook it. Very sad! 💯😐🇺🇸 #Repost #DonaldTrump #DumpTrump #NotMyPresident #Trump #Sad #Truth #Fact #Amazing #Creative #Art #Fun #Game #FollowMe #InstaDaily #Funny #Lol #Tweegram #Webstagram #BestOfTheDay #PhotoOfTheDay #NoFilter

aregularfakenewshound

Anyone care that Trump and Republicans are kick-starting trashing of your air, water, climate?

2/2/17: Un-fake news sources (links), no affiliation:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-regulations-idUSKBN15G5QZ

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/politics/stream-protection-rule/

http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/2/1/14459630/congressional-review-act-obama-regs

We’re working to block 5 costly Obama-era regulations, including a rule that threatens to wipe out thousands of jobs in coal country. pic.twitter.com/xt4jfLj13r

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan)

February 2, 2017

Embed from Getty Images

via GIPHY

The way I look has always confused people. And for whatever reason, people constantly feel the need to label me. However, over time I’ve noticed that “American” is never one of the labels I receive. When I was young, I was extremely naïve to it. I really didn’t realize how different I looked until my younger brother had a friend over. I was only about 6 or 7 making him and his friend 4 or 5. We were playing tag or something and my brother’s friend ran around screaming, “run away from the black girl!”

I was born in Clearwater, Florida. My father was also born in Florida, around Ybor City. My mother was born in South Carolina, and being part of a military family, moved around a lot, but also ended up in Florida where she met my father. My father’s mother was born and raised in England and my father’s father was born in Florida. Most of my father’s father’s family is Hispanic, from Spain and Cuba. They moved to Florida from Cuba in hopes of following the true American dream. My father’s parents opened their own business in St. Petersburg Florida where my father and uncle and aunts all worked together. This is apparently where I get my dark features from, since I’m practically a carbon copy of my aunts. My mother on the other hand is short, paler and has freckles. Her parents are from South Carolina and West Virginia. My brother favors her side of the family more and so he also has a paler complexion than I do. Because my brother and mother seem to look so different, many of my friends or classmates assumed I was adopted, which I didn’t find out until graduation. I really never thought much of it even then.

Since high school and college, I’ve lived in several different states all across the nation, including Hawaii and Alaska and everywhere I go I just puzzle the American people. Only once has someone asked me if I was American. While I was living in Canada for a couple of month doing research, a Canadian woman asked me if I was American, based on my accent. Not the way I looked. Now I’m living in rural Dickson, TN out side of Nashville. My parents just moved here from Florida a few years ago when they bought a business. I do mostly seasonal fieldwork, so in the winter I come back to Tennessee to help them with their business and try to save up some money for my next adventure. But it’s a daily struggle to speak with the people of this rural county. They are very uneducated and have to label me as something un-American. Most of the time it starts with Hindu, but when I explain I’m not Hindu, then according to many, I must be Mexican. At first I just went with it. Whatever, sure I’ll be Hindu if I don’t have to talk to you. But with Trump’s recent election, I’m scared to tell people that I’m anything other than American. But to so many people that’s just not an acceptable answer.

Trump’s election has destroyed a lot of hope for me, as a woman of color (or at least that’s how a lot of people see me) in a field dedicated to science and conservation of wild things. I was very angry at first, and still am very angry at my own country. I broke down and lashed out on a Facebook page over the inauguration because it sickened me that anyone could be happy to see that dumb orange face in the White House. The next day, after my anxiety and adrenaline lowered back to normal, I felt bad for what I said. I meant it and I wasn’t wrong, but I was wasting my breath and valuable time talking to a group of Trump supporters. So I decided that from now on, I’m just going to share all of my slightly racist and degrading interactions with the fellow bloggers of Tumblr for a whole year. Maybe, this way I can’t help share with others who haven’t been discriminated against, what it’s like. I’m also hoping to reach out to others that experience the same interactions. They should know they are not alone. I hope I can figure out a way to learn how to educate other people on labels in this country. Labels are what are destroying us as a country and Trump supporters, and non-supports a like, love to label people. If we can all stop labeling each other as this or that we might be able to realize that we are just people.