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Paul Napier @wildlife-exposures.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

Eye to Eye - White-tailed deer Walton Woods, Amherst, NY December 18, 2025 Also visit: www.instagram.com/wildlife.exposures #OM-1MarkII #OM-1 #photography #wildlifephotography #nature #photographersunited #animalphotography #portrait #naturephotography #winterwildlife #deer #white-tailed #buck

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

Carolina Chickadee serving as lookout for his flock, which was foraging noisily in the low thicket beneath him. #birds 🪶 #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #Chickadees

The Carolina Chickadee is a small bird with a big voice. It has a black cap and chin, a white cheek and a buffy tan breast. It is rarely silent for long. Chickadees live in tight winter flocks, and their voices hold those groups together as they move through thickets and woodland edges.

Recent research has shown that chickadee calls are far more complex than they first appear. The familiar “chick-a-dee” call is not a single alarm sound, but a flexible system made up of distinct note types arranged in patterns. Chickadees vary these patterns depending on context, especially when responding to predators. Calls with more “dee” notes tend to signal higher threat levels, and other chickadees—and even different bird species—respond accordingly.

Scientists have also found that chickadees are sensitive to the structure of their calls. When researchers play back calls that break the usual ordering of notes, chickadees respond differently, suggesting that the sequence itself carries meaning. This kind of structured communication has led biologists to describe chickadee calls as “language-like,” not because they form sentences, but because arrangement and repetition matter.

Chickadee calls are heard and interpreted by many other birds, making them a kind of public warning system in winter forests. Nuthatches, woodpeckers, and other species listen closely, using chickadee calls to assess danger and opportunity. In this way, chickadees help organize a whole winter community through sound.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Red-breasted Nuthatch on a low branch of a pine. There’s an irruption in Maryland this year. Several of these uncommon birds have stayed for the winter. #birds 🪶 #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography

The Red-breasted Nuthatch is a small, restless bird. Its slate-blue back and warm rust-colored breast are set off by a bold white eyebrow and a sharp black eye line, giving it an alert, purposeful expression. It moves headfirst down trunks and along pine branches, probing bark crevices with quick, efficient motions, rarely staying still for long. In the conifer forests of the north, this is a familiar sight. Here in Maryland, it is uncommon.

This winter, a poor cone crop across much of the northern boreal forest has pushed many seed-dependent birds south in search of food. Spruce and fir produced fewer cones than usual, leaving species like Red-breasted Nuthatches with little choice but to wander. Rather than migrating in the traditional sense, they disperse irregularly, following the availability of seeds and suitable habitat. This year, that path has led them into Mid-Atlantic pine woods, where the pines produced a better crop.

What’s striking is how seamlessly these northern visitors have fit in. Red-breasted Nuthatches forage alongside the larger, resident White-breasted Nuthatches with little sign of conflict. Each species seems to occupy its own space, moving through the same trees without friction. It’s an easy coexistence, even though it’s unusual to see both species sharing winter woods here.

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Amy Gann @amygann.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Peek-a-boo. Another older photo with added alt text. A coyote paused in a field partially hidden in the tall grass. #coyote #peekaboo #canine #nature #wildlife #protectnature #photography #EastCoastKin

A coyote sits in the tall grass. It is barely visible as it paused in a field.

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Rob L @pops.pictures · 04/12/2025

A very small slate-gray bird with a white belly and tiny beak is perched on a bare tree branch in the late afternoon on a very cold, snowy autumn day. Towering above it is the blurred, blue bottom of the Anthony Wayne Bridge.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Nandina berries, encrusted in crystalline ice from this weekend’s storm. Frederick County, MD. #StunDay #EastCoastKin #Macro #MacroPhotography

A cluster of deep, pomegranate-red heavenly bamboo berries glows against a backdrop of soft green shadow, each one crowned with glassy ice from the storm. The crystals catch the pale winter light like tiny prisms, while the berries’ smooth skins are bright, warm fire beneath the cold ice.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Chartreuse witch hazel flower cups suspended in cold violet twilight. #Macro #MacroPhotography

They say in these mountains that treasure has a long memory, and once it’s buried it calls out to whoever’s meant to find it. That’s how the story of Jacob Hensley begins, though he never meant to chase gold or listen to dreams.

Years back, before Jacob was born, a mail coach was robbed on the ridge above Briar Hollow. The thief fled with two saddlebags of silver, a pocketful of rubies bound for a jeweler, and a velvet pouch of old rings. But he never made it out. He was shot dead by the coaching guard. The treasure vanished. Some said he buried it in haste. Others said the land swallowed it whole.

Jacob paid old tales no mind, until the night he dreamed of a wooden chest beneath his pasture, coins shining in the moonlight. The dream came twice more. At last he said, “If the land’s speakin’, I’d best listen.”

He took to dowsing. But couldn’t find a good pair of sticks. Nothing worked. Not oak or elm or birch.

One cold November evening, with the hills purple in dusk and frost thin on the ground, Jacob walked the pasture’s edge feeling foolish. Then he saw it, a witch hazel tree, quiet as a keeper of secrets. Its golden petals were gone, but the green flower cups caught the last light. And the tree leaned forward, its branches drawn low as though the earth tugged at them.

Jacob froze. They weren’t moving in the wind. They were pointing.

He stepped toward the tree. The closer he came, the lower the forks dipped. “All right,” he murmured. “Show me.” He dug through leaf litter, then cold soil, then sand. His spade struck timber, old and blackened.

It took an hour to raise the chest. When he pried it open, moonlight seemed to pour out: silver coins stacked like river stones, rubies glowing like embers, rings of gold and garnet, old Spanish dollars, and a watch engraved with a strange crest.

Jacob came to be known as a man who could find things. And he’d tell you: Only witch hazel knows the unseen paths. Only witch hazel bends toward what the earth keeps hidden.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Ripe winter barberries, an offering — and thorns, a warning. #Macro #MacroPhotography

Emily Dickenson

I died for Beauty - but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room -

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For Beauty", I replied -
"And I - for Truth - Themself are One -
We Brethren are", He said -

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night —
We talked between the Rooms -
Until the Moss had reached our lips -
And covered up - Our names -

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

The last witch hazel bloom of the winter season, still vivid against the cobalt shadows of December. #MacroPhotography #Macro #Bloomscrolling #Flowers #NaturePhotography #EastCoastKin

May your voice call out, even when the meadow lies silent beneath frost and cobalt shadows.
May your words burst forth like golden witch hazel into the stillness, and find open ears.
May your phrases twist and curl like yellow tongues of flame against the dark, your wisdom sure, bringing peace and comfort to all who listen.
May your song rise when the world has gone quiet, an offering to those who shiver in the night.
May your melody stay with them, its beauty playing again and again in their memory.
May your dance be one with the moon and the stars, and the fire capture your core and your pulse, the old warmth banishing the cold darkness and filling your soul with power.
May your song be carried up with the smoke into the sky, and your voice rise like a spark from the embers.
And may your words lift into the pale winter light to join the silver moon and the sparking stars, shining down as a quiet radiance that settles over the meadows and turns the frost into a blessing.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Dried wild bergamot (bee balm) #seedhead, its honeycomb chambers already emptied of seed. #Macro #macromonday #BeeBalm #EastCoastKin

I remember this flower. It grew in the meadow just outside my front door. I watched it open from a tight bud and watched its bloom catch the first light of morning. Its soft lavender petals caught each summer breeze and released a faint mint scent when I brushed past. It bloomed longer than the other bergamot stalks and kept its color even as the rest of the meadow began to dry and fade. All season it stood there, brightening my morning walks with a brilliant glowing lavender against the mint green meadow.

When the petals finally fell in autumn, this seed head remained: tight, geometric, and resilient through autumn windstorms and hail, as if the plant had folded all its strength into the intricate honeycomb. The warm straw-colored tubes echo the flawless purple petals that came before them. Even dried, the plant seems sure of itself, built with more sturdiness than you’d expect from something so wispy and delicate in bloom. And when the winter winds finally shook the seeds loose, scattering them into the grasses, I felt a quiet hope that the beauty that greeted me each morning this year would return in seasons to come.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

A male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, wearing the muted reds of his non-breeding plumage, works his way up toward the sap wells he drilled in the trunk of an old, weathered sugar maple. Frederick County, Maryland. #birds 🪶 #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #Woodpeckers

A male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker clings vertically to the rough bark of an old maple. His back and face show a checkered pattern of crisp black and white feathers, while a bright but subdued wash of red colors his chin and crest. Soft, flecked highlights run along the swept-back feathers of his head, catching the light around a dark, alert eye. His bill is a muted gray, and along the flank there’s just a faint hint of the bird’s namesake yellow belly. The background is a gentle blur of winter-blue sky and pale branches, giving the scene a quiet, early-morning feel.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

A Cedar Waxwing 🪶 perched among the tangled branches of a multiflora rose, feasting on the bright red hips. #birds #birding #BirdPhotography #naturePhotography #CedarWaxwing

When we were occupied the days were long and hollow.
We rose with the gray light, tilled our fields beneath the watchtowers, and spoke softly so the wind could not carry the old prayers.
The festivals were forbidden—no fires on the hills, no songs for the rivers.
The druids’ stones were toppled, their names unspoken.
Even the land seemed to sleep beneath the weight of Roman law.

Praefectus called us to the green below the Great Oak.
The old, gnarled tree spread wide on the ridge—roots older than memory, branches thick with the wisdom of age.
Its bark still bore the ghost of the old runes, though the soldiers had scraped them once.
We gathered there, thin and silent, and the Roman mounted a stone, sword at his hip.

“People of the frontier,” he said, voice smooth as river clay,
“you live in the peace of Rome.
No hunger, no chaos, no fear.
The Empire shall endure forever, and your children will praise it as you do today.”

A few near the front nodded, murmuring “Yes, lord,” because such words were expected.
The rest only watched with hollow eyes.

Then the wind shifted—from the west, the direction of renewal, where the souls of the dead sail to rest.
It came as a whisper through the oak’s leaves, speaking a language older than Rome.
Out of that breath came a trembling of wings.

A flock of waxwings fluttered down—gold and gray, hundreds of them—filling the branches above him.
They plucked the acorns and passed them beak to beak, each taking one, each giving one, until the whole tree shimmered with motion and sharing.
Someone began to hum a forbidden refrain, softly at first, then joined by others—the song of the circle unbroken.

The Roman kept speaking, but his voice was only wind in the leaves.
Our eyes had turned upward, following the birds, knowing the sign:
the old ways were stirring, and the wheel was beginning to turn again.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Male Northern Cardinal perched in dark branches above a frosty meadow in Frederick County, MD. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #Cardinal

Folks still tell about Jesse Harless and Eli Tate down by Iron Gate Lake near Galax. Jesse was a mill-hand, kind but poor. Eli owned the store and kept the books in his head, sharp as a tack. They’d traded on credit for years—feed, nails, flour—until one winter Jesse’s work dried up and a debt grew between them.

What started as talk turned to threats. By midsummer 1911, it was pride that kept them arguing. One thick evening, Eli rode down to the lake where Jesse was fixing his boat. He brought his shotgun, “just to hold,” he’d say later. Bad thing was, Jesse had a rifle in the boat, and soon they faced each other on the stony shore, the sun setting red behind the trees.

They had it out there, each blaming the other, shouting above the wind from a storm that was rising dark over the mountain. Their voices boomed over the water until it was hard to tell who was shouting what.

Then it happened.

Jesse’s daughter Annie had been gathering kindling in the woods. Hearing her father’s voice, she came back cautious and stepped on a branch that cracked too loud. Eli turned quick, and Jesse saw the trouble. He lunged to put himself between the gun and his daughter.

When the smoke lifted, Jesse lay twisted in the shallows, his rifle beside him.

Eli stood frozen while the girl screamed. He dropped his gun and ran to help, but it was too late. Jesse was gone.

From that day on, Eli worked from dawn to dark to pay his guilt. He paid every debt Jesse had owed and made sure Annie and her mother never wanted for anything. He sold his store and spent the rest of his life in hard labor—poor and hollow.

They say summer never comes to the place where Jesse fell. The trees are always bare and the air stays cold, even in August. Nobody goes there, but one fisherman told of drifting into that cove and finding the branches full of bright red cardinals. Their eyes, he said, burned with the shameful question whispered on the wind:

“Is your quarrel really worth the winter it’ll bring?”

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Nicole Adams SideEye-Photography @blathin384.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

I can’t help it… here’s another one for #FoxFriday This little fella was just adorable 🥰 Bombay Hook NWR, 1 November 2025 #EastCoastKin #PhotographersUnited #photography #Wildlife #WildlifePhotography

Photo, almost a portrait, of a red fox looking a bit sideways and not fully into the camera. The fox has a curious, almost mischievous, look on its face.

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Wildlife @worldwildlife.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) by Beryl Johnson 🦊 #RedFox #fox #wildlife #nature #mammal #foxes #foxoftheday

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

White-throated Sparrow perched upon a downy goldenrod seed head, feasting on the tiny fruits at the end of each silken thread. #birds 🪶 #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #sparrows #EastCoastKin

When the last purple iron weed faded away and the fields went brown and dry, a sparrow began to worry. Winter would soon seal the earth, and he had no storehouse. Spotting a chipmunk busy with his burrows, the sparrow fluttered down.

“Friend, you’re strong and quick, but I know seeds and seasons,” he said. “Let’s join forces. I’ll gather what we plant, and you shall plant what I gather. Come autumn, we’ll share fairly — I’ll take the tops, and you take the roots.”

The chipmunk thought this sounded just. So all summer they worked: the sparrow collecting millet and goldenrod seed, the chipmunk burying it neatly row by row. When the fields turned gold, the sparrow feasted among the nodding heads while the chipmunk dug up stringy roots and chewed bitterness.

“You’ve tricked me,” Chipmunk grumbled, but the sparrow only tilted his head. “Next time you may choose the parts.”

When spring returned, the chipmunk said, “This year I’ll have the tops, and you the roots.” The sparrow agreed at once. He brought him a bag of green peanuts, and together they planted from dawn to dusk. Through summer the chipmunk watched sturdy leaves unfurl and thought himself wise at last.

But when frost came and the stalks withered, he found the earth riddled with buried pods, and the sparrow cracking shells in triumph. “Peanuts ripen underground,” the little bird said gently. “You should have known your crop.”

The chipmunk’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. All winter he gnawed dry twigs while the sparrow slept warm and full.

When spring came again, the sparrow called, “Shall we plant once more?”

“Never,” said the chipmunk. “I’ll gather my own acorns, dig my own holes, and live on what I store. You are clever, but I’ll eat better if I stick with tradition.”

The sparrow chuckled and flew off to find another partner.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

A Hermit Thrush 🪶 among the branches of a winter maple, bathed in the first rays of an early sunset. #birds #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #HermitThrush #EastCoastKin

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Yellow-rumped Warbler 🪶 among the golden late-autumn blossoms of a witch-hazel tree. #birds #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #warblers #EastCoastKin #WitchHazel

In the tender frosty green of early spring, a pair of Yellow-rumped Warblers built a nest in an old witch-hazel tree. Its bark was smooth and silver, its roots deep in the earth, and buds adorned every branch. The birds wove a nest of grass and moss in a sun-caught crook, hidden from sight. Five eggs rested within, pale as pearls, but only one stirred and cracked. A single chick emerged—tiny, shivering, and fragile. The witchhazel felt his hunger, drank from the soil, and sent its strength upward, unfurling leaves to shield him as the sun grew hotter.

Summer hummed with life: insects drifted through the humid air, and the forest bloomed. The fledgling learned his strength in that season. He hopped along the branches, fluttered between blossoms, and found in the witchhazel a patient teacher. Its flowers called the flies and moths he hunted; its leaves fattened the caterpillars that fed him. Each day he flew farther, yet always returned to the same branch—the rhythm of bark and shade became his world.

When autumn deepened, the forest filled with voices: warblers gathering, bright yellow and olive, speaking of southern forests draped in moss. The young bird trembled with wonder and one night he followed their song into the sky. The witchhazel watched him vanish and, in the hush that followed, grew lonely. As frost crept through the ridges and other trees stood bare, it drew the last warmth from the soil and blossomed again—gold ribbons of fire in a gray wood.

Days passed, and word of its beauty spread. Cardinals, sparrows, and bluebirds came to rest among its branches like bright ornaments. Yet the witchhazel missed its friend. Then one still morning, it felt the faint touch of tiny feet. The warbler had returned early, feathers tipped with gold along wings and crown—a tribute to the tree that had sheltered him. He would stay through the winter, foraging what he could from the quiet, snowy meadows, keeping the witchhazel company through the long hush of the cold.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

A Belted Kingfisher holds a Bluegill caught moments earlier in the shallows of a quiet pond in Frederick County, Maryland. #birds 🪶 #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #BeltedKingfisher #EastCoastKin

Adapted from an old Blackfoot legend: Long ago, when the world was young and snow lay deep across the plains, Old Man walked beside Wolf, teaching him to hunt. But the cold bit hard, and for days they caught no meat. Distracted by his hunger, Old Man grumbled to the wind, his breath white against the sky. Wolf’s ears drooped, the lessons lost to complaint.

One afternoon they came to a wide river sealed in ice. Four Otters slid across the frozen surface. Wolf’s eyes lit with hunger and he began to chase them.

“Wait,” said Old Man. “The river hides air holes, run too fast and you’ll fall through.”

But Wolf, eager to prove himself, leapt away. The Otters vanished beneath the ice, and Wolf, running full speed, slipped and plunged after them. The current swept him beneath the white sheet of water, and silence closed behind him.

Old Man stood alone on the bank. The wind stung his eyes, and his tears were bitter. He had spoken of patience but had grumbled and complained, and now his favorite pupil was gone beneath the ice.

Downstream he found open water and knelt, weeping into the current, but Wolf did not reappear. Above him sat Kingfisher, bright and sharp-eyed, hunting for fish. Hearing Old Man’s cry echo across the valley, the bird laughed his quick, chattering call.

Old Man looked up, first startled, then angry. “You mock my sorrow?” he shouted, and hurled his war club toward the bird.

By instinct, Kingfisher darted, a streak of blue and white. The club grazed his head, lifting his feathers upright into a dark headdress. In that instant, Old Man saw the truth: the bird’s laughter was not cruelty but instinct.

“Little brother,” said Old Man softly, “your grace has taught what my hunger forgot. Wear your feathers high, so the people remember: joy must live beside respect, and instinct beside wisdom.”

This is how the Kingfisher got his headdress and he has worn it proudly to this day.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Male Eastern Bluebird flares his wings to take flight out of a Bittersweet thicket where he was feeding. Frederick County, MD. #birds 🪶 #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #EasternBluebirds #EastCoastKin

The Last Word of a Bluebird.

Robert Frost 1874 – 1963

As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, “Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax—
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing.”

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

A Blue Jay pausing for a drink at the edge of a woodland pond. Frederick County, MD. #Birds 🪶 #Birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #StunDay #EastCoastKin

An old Chinook legend from the lower Columbia River country tells of a day when Fox, Coyote, and Jay met on the road.

“How are you, Coyote?” asked Fox.
“Hungry,” Coyote sighed.
Jay fluttered down from a branch and preened his feathers. “You’re always hungry,” he teased.
Fox laughed. “Plenty of wagons pass here, full of food. I have a trick—watch me.”

Fox lay down in the road, pretending to be dead. Soon a man came along with a wagon full of supplies. Seeing Fox stretched out, he said, “What fine fur—I'll take him and sell the skin.” He tossed Fox into the wagon. Once inside, Fox ate until he was full, then jumped out and ran back to show the others. “See me, Coyote? I’m full. Do what I did.”

Jay fluffed his wings and said, “Wait—my turn.” He soared high, then swooped down, folding his wings at the last moment so it looked like he’d crashed against the next wagon. The driver saw the blue feathers and cried, “A beauty! These will fetch a fine price for ladies’ hats.” He scooped Jay up and tossed him into the wagon.

Jay stayed still until the man looked away, then pecked open a sack of grain and ate his fill. When the wagon stopped, he flew out the back, scattering kernels and laughing as he went.

At last Coyote tried the trick himself. He lay down in the road and waited. Soon another man came driving by, spotted him, and shouted, “You won’t trick me again like you did yesterday!” He jumped down, beat Coyote with a stick, and sent him running off howling and hungry.

Later Coyote was licking his wounds. “That’s the oldest trick in the book,” he grumbled, “but I thought someone might be enough of a sucker to fall for it twice.” Fox grinned and opened a small bundle. Inside was bread and dried meat. Jay hopped closer with a beak full of grain. “We saved some for you,” said Fox. Coyote’s eyes brightened, and the three of them ate together beside the road.

When they’d finished, Jay flicked his tail and laughed. “We knew you’d already tried every trick in the book.”

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

A White-breasted Nuthatch prepares to dive into #Flyday, eyes fixed upon the weekend foraging for late-autumn insects in the sun-washed forest. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #EastCoastKin

Long ago, before the rivers found their voices, the people forgot how to walk in balance. They leaned too far toward the light, or too far toward the dark. Their hearts grew heavy with wanting, and the trees bent with them, unsure which way to grow.

The elders called to the forest for a teacher, and from the great oak came a small bird — White-breasted Nuthatch, quick as breath, soft as the sound of a seed dropping. She climbed the trunk headfirst, upside-down, her tail pressed to the bark.

The people laughed. “Little one, you have lost your way.”

But the bird only answered, “No, I am seeing both sides.”

She showed them that healing does not come from standing still, but from turning — from seeing the world as a circle, not a line.

When they watched her, they learned: to begin again each morning without bitterness; to use what is near at hand, even small things, and make them sacred; to hide their most precious hopes where noise cannot reach them; to trust the help of others, yet keep their own rhythm.

And when the healers sang for balance, they whispered her prayer: Let me see as the nuthatch sees, turning the world to make it whole.

The people began to walk more gently. The trees straightened. The rivers remembered their paths.

Even now, when you hear that little tap-tap on the pine, know she is still at her work — walking the tree both ways, reminding us to change our view, to begin again, and to look with both eyes.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

A Song Sparrow peers through the gray mist of an early autumn morning, standing sentry while the flock below feasts on grass and thistle seed. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #sparrow

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

A little bird, with plumage brown,
Beside my window flutters down,
A moment chirps its little strain,
Ten taps upon my window–pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.

So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life’s window–sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic’s rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

White-throated Sparrow, balanced on a thin late-autumn branch — its gold and gray plumage mirrored in the fading leaves and quiet, tired meadows. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #sparrows #WhiteThroatedSparrow

Fujiwara no Sanekata, a court poet of the Heian era, was known for his wit, beauty, and vanity — and for his strange devotion to sparrows. In a world where every gesture at court was a poem, he found in those small birds the one thing that answered him without pretense.

They gathered outside his residence in Kyoto each dawn, flickering through the mist like living brushstrokes. Sanekata scattered rice before them, whispering verses as if to lovers: “Little messengers of morning, what secret stirs your wings?” The courtiers teased him, saying his heart had flown from the palace to the trees. Yet he called them his consolation in an age of ceremony.

When he was exiled to distant Michinoku for a quarrel at court, he carried a sparrow in a bamboo cage on the long road north. There, amid reed marshes and the cries of cranes, he released it — but each evening he left a handful of rice on his veranda, certain it would return. He wrote, “In the voice of a sparrow, I hear the city I have lost.”

Legend says that in the final year of his life, the sparrows did return — hundreds of them, crowding the eaves of his hut in a storm. When attendants entered the next morning, they found Sanekata seated by the window, brush fallen from his hand, the ink still wet. Outside, the sparrows chattered as if reading his last poem aloud.

In old Kyoto, people still say that sparrows linger near poets’ homes because they once listened to Sanekata’s verses — small keepers of memory, carrying fragments of an exile’s voice across the centuries.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Female Dark-eyed Junco in soft winter plumage. Early arrival to Frederick County, Maryland. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #photography #junco

Each year, when the last embers of autumn burn low, winter rises above the horizon as a gray dove. Her wings unfold across the sky and blanket the hills and meadows with silence and peace — a crystalline sheen of frost, the faint threads of an icy breeze. In the high air the clouds grow heavy, the scent of snow sharpens, and then her feathers begin to drift down: pure and white, a peaceful covering that smooths the world into quiet solitude.

As her heralds come the small charcoal birds, reminders of the embers that rekindle the winter hearth on cold December mornings. They perch in the pines, gather in flocks, and a handful of millet will draw them in droves. Shining black eyes, buffy backs, and slate hoods above pure white breasts — their beaks a soft, subtle pink. These are the juncos, the birds of winter, wings fanning in the crisp, cold air to replace the last humid breath of autumn.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Male Downy Woodpecker on the roof of my shed in the light of a golden November sunrise. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephtotgraphy #downy #woodpecker

Long ago, the world often forgot to wake. The nights would stretch too far, and the dawn would hesitate beyond the hills, unsure of its place. The rivers grew cold, the trees shivered, and even the wind seemed to lose its way. Among all the creatures, it was the Downy Woodpecker who could not bear the silence. He flew to the tallest tree above the river and began to strike the bark again and again, his beak ringing like a drum. With each blow, a thin seam of light split the horizon, and the sky slowly began to breathe.

The others heard him and stirred — frogs lifting their voices, insects tuning their wings, the people opening their eyes to the bright crack of a new day. They say that since then, the Downy has kept the same promise: each morning he tests the strength of the dawn. If the world grows weary, he will wake it again.

His crimson crest glows with the color of that first sunrise, and his tapping still carries through mist and fog like a heartbeat beneath the clouds. To some, it’s just a bird at work, hunting grubs in the bark. But to those who listen closely, it is a reminder that light never returns on its own — it needs a call, a keeper, a steady rhythm.

So when the woodpecker greets the dawn each morning, pause. Let the sound roll through the quiet places inside you. He is striking the edge of darkness, making sure the day still knows its way home.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

A Cooper’s Hawk, perched above a pond, just after sunrise. There was a small flock of sparrows at the edge of the water that he was locked onto with blood-red eyes. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #raptor #hawk

A Cooper’s Hawk perches at the edge of a pond at dawn. Charcoal feathers catch the faint light before spreading silently into flight. He patrols the forest margin, eyes burning like embers as they rake the thickets and grasses for motion. From his tucked yellow legs extend talons sharp as razors, curved to pierce and hold. Then, from high above, he drops like a bullet, the air folding around him. A sparrow bursts upward, only to be seized on the wing, and swept away. A dark, silent shadow claims his share from last year’s brood.

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Mike Henry @onlyveesaz.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Ubiquitous to the area and always causing trouble- California Scrub Jay

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Remembering the summer pond, under Wednesday's hunter's moon. meigetsu ya ike o megurite yomosugara (Matsuo Bashō, translations in alt) #waterlily #photography #BloomScrolling #Eastcoastkin

Matsuo Bashō 1684

Harvest moon—
all night long I circle
the pond.

Bright autumn moon—
around the pond I wander,
all through the night.

The full moon’s light—
I walk the pond’s edge
till night itself dissolves.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Northern Mockingbird stands sentinel above the season’s last green leaves, Frederick County, MD, early November 2025. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #EastCoastKin

The mockingbird sits on a sprig of green leaves, the last breath of summer’s color. Around him, the meadow has faded from the brilliance of autumn fires to the quiet brown of winter. His song, once a flood of mimicry and melody, has softened into fragments — dry scolding notes and half-remembered phrases from summer.

Soon the soft snows will come, and he will move with the winter flocks, branch to branch, taking his share of the fermented berries that hold the memory of sunlight. In that way he keeps the summer alive through the cold — until the spring sun returns to warm the fields and fatten the buds. Then, once more, he will remember his full-throated songs.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Swamp Sparrow perched in reeds at the edge of a wetland meadow, Frederick County, MD. #birds #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #Sparrows

A Swamp Sparrow perches at the edge of cover near a bog in a grassy thicket. Its chestnut crown is slightly raised, the rufous patches on its wings half-veiled by lemon-green rushes. A fine yellow eye ring and dark mask set off the gray face, and a warm wash touches the feathers below the eye. The breast shows a soft tan with faint, darker mottling, subtle colors for camouflage in the shadows of the marsh.

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Davesphotos 🇨🇦 🍁🍁🍁 @davesadventures.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Heading out for dinner and then a World Series party! May the Jays stand out like this Beech tree does! #Photography #EastCoastKin #Nature

a lone Beech tree with radiant yellow leaves in a drab forest

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Fraggs Photography 📸🦊🦉🦋🦔 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @fraggenstein.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

"Hello Darkness My Old Friend" ~ Don't forget that the clocks go back an hour tonight in the UK - dark evenings now till spring 2026 🕰️⏰~ one of my favourite photos of a Fox just gently stepping into the light 🦊 #mammals #fox #wildlife #bluesky #naturephotography #naturetherapy #ukwildlife

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Mark Scheflen @markscheflen.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Pine Warbler, Central Park, NYC. A small songbird found mainly in pine forests across eastern North America. markscheflen.com #birdphotography #conservationphotography #biodiversity #warblersofinstagram #pinewarblers #wildlifeconservation #birdsseenin2025

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

An intense stare from a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Frederick County, Maryland. October 2025. These were plentiful in Maryland last weekend, filling the trees, but I didn't see a single one lift its ruby crown. #birds 🪶 #birding #birdphotography #naturephotography #Flyday #EastCoastKin

$This tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet swims through the autumn forest, weaving through foliage that’s a tapestry of pomegranate and sapphire as it searches for plump insects that have slowed down and fattened up in the late-season chill. A pale lemon wash glows along the edges of its wing primaries, and bright white wing bars flash in the understory of the dark, rain-damp woods. Its black eyes and needle-fine beak fix the observer with an intense, almost challenging stare. Barely three inches long, the kinglet never stops moving—darting, hovering, vanishing among the leaves. The male conceals a crown that is nothing short of astonishing. Most of the day he looks modest, olive and gray-green. Then, in a flash of agitation or courtship, the feathers atop his head flare to reveal a vivid ruby patch, metallic and refractive, each feather catching light and glowing. For an instant he blazes like a tiny king, his ruby crown flared in royal defiance.$

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

A local farm has a massive sugar maple on the edge of the property, and last week it glowed in the sunset. Looking up through the canopy reminded me of the #Chihuly Persian Ceiling in Seattle. These images are all of that same gigantic tree. #Autumn #Fall #EastCoastKin

Under the Chihuly Persian Ceiling in Seattle, backlit glass glows like a captured sunset—fluted bowls and discs layered in molten orange and ocean blue, lit from above until the air itself seems to glow. Step beneath it and you drift inside color, where shadow dissolves and edges no longer hold. It’s like being immersed in color, swimming in a pool of light.

A tremendous maple burns with the same palette—reds spilling into gold, each leaf a pane of living glass. Sunlight floods through the crown until the air turns liquid and sound disappears. You stand in the middle of the radiance, and your thoughts melt into the warm light and disappear. Time slows down and what remains is breath.

Deeper in, the hues mellow to amber and honey. The canopy hangs low, filtering light into a calm warming glow. There is amazing variation in the colors and gradients across the canopy. You look around. The glass ceiling has become wood and leaf, but the sensation is the same—a luminous stillness that erases distance between body and sky, a hush that seems reverent.

At the edges the fire cools to lemon and green. You walk out from beneath the canopy and feel unbound from clocks and routines. You are transformed. This tree will now be remembered as the Chihuly Tree: in autumn a living ceiling of color and quiet reflection, where art and nature share the same bright breath.

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OMPhotos @120minute.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

A red maple branch stands out in the hardwood forests of southwestern Virginia. Deep in the woods, in a spot near Pandapas Pond, Blacksburg. Autumn, 2025. #Fall #Autumn #NaturePhotography #Virginia #Eastcoastkin #Blacksburg #VirginiaTech

They say there was once a man up on Brush Mountain named James Lineberry, an old gray-bearded banjo player who used to pick with Lester Flatt himself before a bass fish the size of a washtub pulled him clean off his feet and broke his finger out at Pandapas Pond. Couldn’t play worth a lick after that, so he turned his music into something you could drink. Folks claimed his shine was the smoothest east of Galax, clear as spring water and absolutely dangerous. The revenuers hunted that still for years, tromping through laurel thickets and mud till their boots came apart, but they never found it. Lineberry had tucked it so deep in the woods that only the mountain seemed to know. Come every autumn, when the fog hung low and the colors burned high, one red maple branch would blaze brighter than all the rest. That was the sign, they said—the banner that marked the trail. Find that branch, and you were in the race: Lineberry’s kin outrunning the law with the tires of their trucks kicking up the mountain gravel. By winter the branch went dull again, and the secret went back underground with the roots.

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