iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A Gemini hallucination I wish was true. "Tenso" and "tern" are not, alas, etymologically related. My troubadour question then is: which is the more likely model, nightingale or blackbird? The latter, I suspect, is more likely to "rhyme" when counter-singing.

"The English word 'tern' was borrowed directly from the Old Occitan word tensa (meaning 'strife, dispute, or debate'—the exact linguistic root of the poetic tenso) due to the bird's famously aggressive, noisy, and argumentative nature when nesting in colonies." This is not true. The word is Scandinavian.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Male Baltimore oriole song over two days. Note how the song stabilizes (and how this bird seems to have picked up a red-winged blackbird alarm call). #bioacoustics youtu.be/VIelH7LIm9Q?...

youtu.be

Baltimore oriole male stabilizes song over the course of two days

YouTube video by Peter Oehlkers

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Interesting song evolution in Baltimore oriole male. This bird changed his song at least three times in response to the orioles around him, but maintained a distinctive opening. youtu.be/1ktNhzFrJ18?...

youtu.be

Baltimore oriole song evolution during a single month

YouTube video by Peter Oehlkers

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

…How they talk. They teach to us the arts of persuasion and rules of government better than did Plato, or those drawn from Demosthenes…. Editorial on Pigeons, Pennsylvania Telegraph, February 23, 1850. #publicsphereofbirds

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Finally, something bird-themed showed up in Steve Albini’s Closet.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

I call this micro-season, “I forgot where I hid my Audio Moths.”

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

I call this micro-season "Next year I'll study warbler songs before they arrive."

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

A Baltimore oriole type 3 singer also arrived today. Whether it is Lord Trestleton himself remains to be seen (I have my doubts...) See podcast episodes 2 and 3. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/e...

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Second Baltimore oriole this season is a type-2 singer, but one with a final "chip" instead of a bell-shaped note. Could this be BAOR 11 from last year? (See Podcast Episode 5). podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/e...

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

It's Baltimore oriole time again at the Charles River Peninsula. First bird back is a type 1 singer (see Podcast Episode 5) podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/e...

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

I call this microseason, "Where are the fox sparrows? Did I miss the fox sparrows?"

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I call this micro-season "Ducks fly screaming from the trees."

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

1990. Sitting outside the library looking over Arisugawa Park wondering if it was too late to change my dissertation from US-Japan relations to the social interaction of large-billed crows. (it was)

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

First spring peepers. And while I listened, a raven circled, its GAA echoing across the meadow. #easter

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Third installment of The Public Sphere of Birds, collecting U.S. newspaper items related to birds, 1801-1810. Includes documentation of the promotion and reception of Wilson's Ornithology and the increasing use of bird metaphors in political discourse. #envhist #envhum archive.org/details/publ...

"Book of Nature" header image for advertisement, Peale's Museum in Philadelphia, July 1810. Scudder's Museum in New York also used "Book of Nature" language in its advertising.

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Reposted by oehlkers

Anna N Osiecka 🍉 @aosiecka.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

New work from myself, @kasiawojczulanis.bsky.social @lsburchardt.bsky.social : seabird calls share not only efficiency universals, but also prosodic patterns with our speech. Rallentando rhythms carry info absent in spectra. 🔊🐧 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

野鳥と文学 (wild birds and literature) is a great work of comparative [British/American/Japanese] bird literature, though it does lean pretty heavily on the contributions of W.H. Hudson... At any rate, I remain haunted by the book's reference to a companion cassette of recorded birdsong....

Cover of "Yachō to Bungaku." (Wild Birds and Literature) showing a European Blackbird. Book was published in 1982, written by OKUDA Natsuko, YAMAZAKI Kimiko, KAWASAKI Akiko with recordings by KABAYA Tsuruhiko.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

My new project, The Public Sphere of Birds, collects bird-related articles in U.S. American newspapers and highlights the ways in which birds have been figured as rhetorical actors and communication media. Volume 1, covering 1713 to 1776, is out today. archive.org/details/publ...

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

I think it's safe to say it is spring now.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

I'm here for the birdsong appreciation moments in ゲゲゲの女房 (GeGeGe no Nyōbō, NHK, 2010, Ep 120). MIZUKI Shigeru's daughter hears a bird and thinks it's a sparrow. He corrects her: that's a varied tit (ヤマガラ). She listens to the song with renewed enthusiasm.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Remarkable. Calum Johnston: Song of the Thrush (Oran a' Smeoraich) recorded by Alan Lomax in 1951. archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/s...

archive.culturalequity.org

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

In the waning hours of winter break, I have decided to start birding the work of IZUMI Kyōka (who participated in the founding of the Wild Bird Society of Japan). Off to a good start.

Panels from MIZUKI Shigeru's biography of IZUMI Kyōka showing him dueting on shamisen with his pet mejiro 三太郎. This is from the ebook version of 方丈記／水木しげるの泉鏡花伝　【水木しげる漫画大全集】available at ebook Japan and other places.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

while I was waiting for the otter to re-emerge from its hole, the sun came up

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Just uploaded The Complete Little Stories for Bedtime by Thornton W. Burgess, 1917. Please enjoy. archive.org/details/twb-...

Harrison Cady illustration of Buster Bear in a snowy environment looking at the evening stars.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Brief resort-limited DR trip. Made a handful of new friends, including Carpintero, Chichilín, Vencejito, and Petigre, and hung out with Rey Congo on the deck (pictured here). #birds

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

My daughter crocheted me a Juan Carlos Bodoque finger puppet for Xmas.

Crocheted finger puppet representing 31 Minutos environmental reporter Juan Carlos Bodoque.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

"People's Home Journal Green Meadow Club Bird Sanctuaries Campaigns (1917-1925)," a collection of bird protection-related articles written by Thornton W. Burgess and William T. Hornaday, along with a few illustrations by Harrison Cady. archive.org/details/phj-...

Detail from 1919 illustration in The People's Home Journal by Harrison Cady showing a farmer besieged by insects.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

My happy place rn is pop music from late 1960s Japan. youtube.com/playlist?lis...

youtube.com

Late 1960s Kayōkyoku - YouTube

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Article in August issue of Bird Observer. The Blackbirds of Boxford: Early American Wild Bird Advocacy. www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2025/...

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Senjōgahara, Oku-Nikkō, Japan.

The author, bins out, on an observation platform.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

It is well known that gray catbirds copy the songs of other birds, including Baltimore orioles. But why would this catbird (top) sing the syllables of the oriole song (bottom) in reverse order? #birds #bioacoustics

Two spectrograms. Top is gray catbird. Bottom is Baltimore Oriole. The catbird sings three of the syllables of the oriole song but in reverse order.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Baltimore orioles are thought to have individually unique songs, but some communities share songs. I recorded this song exchange, involving three or four different orioles, three days in a row. #birds #fieldrecording ebird.org/checklist/S2...

ebird.org

eBird Checklist - 16 May 2025 - Charles River Peninsula (TTOR) - 1 species

Submitted by Peter Oehlkers.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Weird ultrasonic specters in my spectrogram. Anyone know what these might be? Daytime recording. Audiomoth. #fieldrecording

Screenshot of strange images in spectrogram in 18.5K to 23K frequency range.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Just finished Toshitaka Suzuki's professional memoir 僕には鳥の言葉がわかる [I understand the words of birds], an invitation for everyone to become more "tori-lingual." Especially impressed by the thoughtfulness of his media strategies in trying to spread the word about animal linguistics.

Screenshot of portion of page of Suzuki's book, with the word "鳥リンガル” circled.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

The 27th different Baltimore oriole song I recorded this spring is one of the best. Check out the vibrato. And the jaunty ending. #birds #fieldrecording macaulaylibrary.org/asset/635694...

macaulaylibrary.org

ML635694630 - Baltimore Oriole - Macaulay Library

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Braved the pollen and went recording this morning, and good thing! The orioles are back, Orchard and Baltimore. The Baltimore I recorded is a veteran male, singing a variation of the dominant song at the property.

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oehlkers @oehlkers.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Wondering exactly where Meaningful Stone (김뜻돌) sourced the soundscape recording for the end of "10AM." American robin/blue jay/northern cardinal/mourning dove could easily be my backyard. youtu.be/DOl6BryH0JQ?...

youtu.be

10AM

YouTube video by Meaningful Stone - Topic

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