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Sarah Swanson

@sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
1.1K followers 154 following 580 posts

Author of Best Little Book of Birds: the Oregon Coast and Best Little Book of Birds: Cascades and Columbia Gorge🦉 she/her #birding #embroidery #oregon

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Reposted by Sarah Swanson
Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
More footage of just-hatched grebe babies from the Koll Wetlands. So cute.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Grebes feeding their new babies out at the Koll Wetlands yesterday, birding with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Out birding, @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social and I found three juvie kestrels and their parents in a large yard with a meadow and tree cover. Two of the teenagers were hanging out in the storm gutter of the house! So cute.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Just a few of the birds @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social and I saw at the Julia Hansen Refuge and Fort Stevens State Park.
barn swallowospreypurple martinkilldeer
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Two eagles fight over a fish today at Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for the Columbian White-Tailed Deer, while @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social and I watched...
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Some great birds out at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, birding with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social 1/2
blue heron through grassescrow on submerged logbarred owl peering out from tree, looking like part of the texture of the moss and bark.wood duck duckling in center of water silhouetted with tree branches
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Merganser babies practicing their dives! At the really wonderful Errol Heights park and wetlands.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
your moment of calm: a tree swallow at the top, a rough winged swallow below it, and barn swallows arranged along the lower right... all startled by a carp lol
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Great day for birding at the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social. Also saw grosbeaks, eagles, and 58 species total.
ducklings with mom watchingkildeer on nestsavannah sparrow on branchyellowthroat adorbler on moss
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The Birdist @thebirdist.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
first base: kissing second base: birding the park together third base: couple trip to southern Arizona home run: hiding together in a Brownsville dumpster in hopes of being brought to the landfill for an exclusive, up-close view of a Tamaulipas Crow
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
your moment of american dipper performing victory dance after scarfing down a large insect
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
It’s my birthday and you know what that means: finding my age in bird species. Let’s go!
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A Birder @a-birder.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
I flushed a #woodcock that began a distraction display. I stood still looking for a nest or young. Not seeing either, I walked away about 2 steps and saw these 4 chicks. Yes, all 4 chicks are alive, they freeze when disturbed. When the hen flushed, she apparently knocked 3 chicks over. 🪶 #birds
Four woodcock chicks lie on the ground "frozen" into position to avoid predators, three of the chicks lie on their back, feet up. The black and white dorsal pattern of one chick is harder to distinguish than the white bellies of the other three chicks.
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Exactly!
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Around Portland with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
blue whale mobileturtle in watereye pinatassecond turtle
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Lisa Buckley @lisavipes.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
As the weather warms and we take to the outside more, I think it's time for my annual thread of Creepy Woodsy Sounds That Aren't Ghosts/Demons/Bigfoot! The Canada Lynx in the quoted post might make me jump for a sec!
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Cinnamon teel out at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. Great expedition with @sallyfisherprice.bsky.social.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Perfect day today
sandhill crane flies in front of mount st helens
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Snake Portraits: A Photo Essay. 1/2 All snakes spotted by @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
Two garter snake bundle. Thanks to the idea of "snake portraits" to Sarah Swanson.One garter snakecurled up garter snake on rocks.three garter snakes!
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Spooky Femme Peter Lorre 🙀 @sarahkite.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Seen tacked to a community board on my walk
laminated flyer pushpinned to a community board. we see a photo of a coyote, and the text reads:

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DOG?

[photo of a coyote]

DUMMY THAT'S A COYOTE.
OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO???:
—NO ACTION REQUIRED
—IT IS WILDLIFE IN THE WILD (!)
-HERE TO EAT DELICIOUS RODENT
-LET HER COOK
—NOT INTERESTED IN YOU, LOL GET OVER YOURSELF BABE;)
—KEEP DOGS ON LEASH AND CATS INDOORS
-(LIKE YOU SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY)
—YOTE IS A RESPECTED NEIGHBOR AND CRITTER CONTROL PROFESSIONAL
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Bird Alliance of Oregon @birdallianceoregon.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Birdathon registration is open! 🎉Count bird species (not miles) in this fun event open to beginners and experienced birders alike. Join a team or go solo, meet people, explore outdoors, and support bird conservation statewide. Bonus: punny team names! 👉 Learn more & register: bit.ly/Birdathon2026
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Around Portland with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social today.
vat of slidesrainbow flag of fabric stripsvat of empty pill bottlescorgi named truffle in yellow jacket
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Cruddy half-decent photos from soggy birding expedition with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social. We saw a barred owl, muskrat, and a bunny! Only some pictured here.
washed out swimming muskrat in a mush of rain cloudy water.hummingbird in silhouettegadwell duck dining on something in the waterSleepy barred owl dreaming of a juicy mouse.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Your moment of calm: a barred owl @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social adroitly spotted near Reed College. 1/2
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Quite a lot of lovely texture seen on the Reed College Texture Gathering Expedition that @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social and I went on yesterday. Our findings will be presented at the 2027 London Architecture College's "Colloquium on the Quantum Loss of Tactile Experience in the 21st Century".
yellow skunk cabbage blossomorange striped fish with long snoutglasses left on a stump, surrounded by greeneryoh who this? this who. this who fungi lookin' like a fritter, like a fritter gained consciousness and sat up on a log and said who this, this is who.
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Dan Baldassarre @evornithology.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
If the human race is to survive, we must terraform Goose Planet 🌎
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Around the Koll wetlands with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social the other day.
night heron in brambled pond-side branchesmale ring-necked duckgoose fully extended like globular vase with long neckgadwell duck
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
My event in Portland today went well...
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Mikko Jimenez @mikkojimenez.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
A study I led came out in Nature Cities yesterday! We used radar to study the role that urban landscapes play in migratory bird stopover. Spoiler: birds use cities a lot, and the patterns of their use reflect social processes and the inequities embedded in them. www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Migratory bird stopover patterns linked to urbanization and social landscapes - Nature Cities
Urban ecology traditionally focuses on single cities, yet cities play key roles in ecological processes such as migration. Radar analysis across the continental USA reveals that nearly half of stopove...
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Around troll pkaces with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
wooden troll attacking a red swedish shed according to legend, but in fact the shed was the troll's father until the wood hunters made him into a shed. now he languidly extols the virtues of fireplace and chimney while troll child screams "remember before you were dwelling!"back slates of wooden troll, with a rudder beaver tail at lower left for no reason known to god or swedennutty accumulation of unpainted bird houses at kaleidoscopic angles hangkng off postdouble door wood carved
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Lost toupee at Koll Wetlands. Free. Seen by me and @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
butt of nutria, eye of newt, no it's a butt of nutria, in marsh
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Yes and it is also an ice cream shop that has a needle-felting area. I award it 10/10 Portlands.
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
I’m definitely going back to the strawberry museum in June!
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Nest failure due to drone use is a real thing. Please do comment to help birds and other wildlife against an absolutely stupid unnecessary hazard. Honestly, who the fuck needs a drone.
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Dan Baldassarre @evornithology.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
American Oystercatchers be like
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Rebecca Heisman @rheisman.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Once a year or so my local public library does a display of bird books — it made me smile today to see mine and @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social's side by side!
a display of books on wall shelves at a library, including Flight Paths by Rebecca Heisman and Must-See Birds of the Pacific Northwest by Sarah Swanson & Max Smith
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Here is my take for @orionmagazine.bsky.social on the non-existent bigfoot. A lot of time, effort, and research went into this. Thanks to @annvandermeer.bsky.social for lots of interview assistance and @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social. Extra photos in thread. 1/? orionmagazine.org/article/bigf...
orionmagazine.org
Double Take - Orion Magazine
Are people crying Bigfoot when it’s really a bear?
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Mike Kaspari @mikekaspari.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Help me Hive Mind! This Haydn sonata has a riff, first presented in the very first measure, that was borrowed by Beethoven (a Haydn fan and pupil) in one of B’s great piano works. Which, of course, I can’t place. And which, of course, is driving me crazy. Any help? youtu.be/jfsSFGDpFbw?...
youtu.be
Haydn Sonata in C Major, Hob XVI 48 – Alfred Brendel
YouTube video by Zhanna Gumenyuk
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Cool to see my friend @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social on KATU here in Portland, OR, this morning to promote the @birdallianceoregon.bsky.social's Wildlife Arts Festival (this coming weekend!). www.wildartsfestival.org
Sarah in green dress with host in black, with a table of books and art connected to the Wildlife Arts Festival here in Portland.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Your moment of calm: kestrel on a fence post. Out at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Two sandhill cranes, seen on an expedition with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
From Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge today, with @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social
blue heronsandhill cranered tailed hawk in silhouette
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Happy Holidays! Every day until Christmas, I'll use this thread to rec a book to help you with your gift list. Let's start with THE TWENTY DAYS OF TURIN by Giorgio De Maria, translated by Ramon Glazov, and republished with a foreword by moi. Buy from your fav indie. (Alt text = more detail.) 1/?
Cover of Twenty Days of Turin, with text in white showing foreword by Jeff VanderMeer, author Giorgio De Maria, Translated by Ramon Glazov centered down the middle over black and white art Satan Sowing the Tare by Felicien Victor Joseph Rops, a Belgian artist of the late 1800s.

Description of the novel: In the spare wing of a church-run sanatorium, some zealous youths create "the Library," a space where lonely citizens can read one another’s personal diaries and connect with like-minded souls in "dialogues across the ether." But when their scribblings devolve into the ugliest confessions of the macabre, the Library’s users learn too late that a malicious force has consumed their privacy and their sanity. As the city of Turin suffers a twenty-day "phenomenon of collective psychosis" culminating in nightly massacres that hundreds of witnesses cannot explain, the Library is shut down and erased from history. That is, until a lonely salaryman decides to investigate these mysterious events, which the citizenry of Turin fear to mention. Inevitably drawn into the city’s occult netherworld, he unearths the stuff of modern nightmares: what’s shared can never be unshared.

An allegory inspired by the grisly neo-fascist campaigns of its day, The Twenty Days of Turin has enjoyed a fervent cult following in Italy for forty years. Now, in a fretful new age of "lone-wolf" terrorism fueled by social media, we can find uncanny resonances in Giorgio De Maria’s vision of mass fear: a mute, palpitating dread that seeps into every moment of daily existence. With its stunning anticipation of the Internet―and the apocalyptic repercussions of oversharing―this bleak, prescient story is more disturbingly pertinent than ever.
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
It worked!
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Let’s go birding!
A meme with blond lady in sunglasses talking to an iced latte. She says “you better fix my entire life.” the words “clay-colored sparrow” are superimposed on the latte.
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Olivia Pumpkin Portlander 🐙🎃🍋🐊🦋☂️ @sallyfisherprice.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
She is ready for adoption! www.multcopets.org/adoptable/37...
Details of a cattle dog available for adoption at the multnomah county animal shelter.  They call her Maris.  I never called her that.
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
My two favorite fungi from a rainy forest walk: fluted bird’s nest fungus and honey mushrooms. November in Oregon is wonderful!
Tiny cup-shaped fungi surrounded by green moss. Three yellow mushrooms with a frill on their stems, amidst moss, ferns and dead leaves.
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Sarah Swanson @sarahlovesbirds.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
My two favorite fungi from a rainy forest walk: fluted bird’s nest fungus and honey mushrooms. November in Oregon is wonderful!
Tiny cup-shaped fungi surrounded by green moss. Three yellow mushrooms with a frill on their stems, amidst moss, ferns and dead leaves.
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American Birding Association @aba.org · 13/11/2025
If birds were actually government drones, then there wouldn't have been any birds during the shutdown. It's over.
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