https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamois
I had to downscale the image. Hexbear couldn't handle this big a goat 
Made me feel slightly tilted.
Doe. A deer. A female deer.
White tail deer, maybe five years old. It’s called a White tail because when lifted up, the underside of the tail is completely white.
Went stomping around the bushes looking for a campsite near a lake and I found her and two companions munching grass near a road. The other two were skittish and bolted before I could get my phone pointed but this one let me get within 6-8 foot before walking into the brush slowly.
Also called Texas Virgin’s Bower apparently. Found while out wandering the south Texas scrub brush doing some hot weather camping.
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4917038
The western screech owl (Megascops kennicottii) is a small owl native to North and Central America, closely related to the eastern screech owl. The scientific name commemorates the American naturalist Robert Kennicott. Western Screech-Owls are small owls with stocky bodies. They have somewhat square heads, almost no neck, and conspicuous ear tufts. The tail is short. They are superbly camouflaged birds with a base color that can be grayish, brownish, or reddish-brown (rufous). The upperparts are flecked with white; the breast and belly are pale with dark, spidery streaks. The face is pale, outlined with dark arcs. The eyes are yellow.
Western Screech-Owls live mainly in forested habitats, especially in bands of deciduous trees along canyons and other drainages. Common trees include cottonwood, aspen, alder, water birch, oak, and bigleaf maple. But you can also find Western Screech-Owls in suburbs, parks, deserts, coastal areas, and in mountains up to about 6,000 feet elevation.
Western Screech-Owls are nocturnal. They usually leave their roosts around sunset to forage, returning within a half-hour of sunrise. You may glimpse them perching at the entrances of their roost cavities on sunny winter days. They are "socially monogamous," meaning that pairs raise young together, although both sexes may also mate outside the pair. The male and female in a pair often preen each other. During courtship and mating, they sing duets, and the male presents food to the female. Like many small owls, Western Screech-Owls nest in tree cavities excavated by woodpeckers. They may also use naturally occurring cavities, such as those formed where branches have broken off a trunk. Very occasionally, they nest in cavities in cliffs and banks. They sometimes use nest boxes. Wherever the location, the male owl finds a suitable hole, then calls or leads the female to it, sometimes by carrying an enticing prey item. They may use the same cavity for several years in a row. The Western Screech-Owl does not build a nest, but lays its eggs on whatever material happens to be in the cavity. Western Screech-Owl nest cavities are about 1 foot in diameter and 1 to 1.5 feet deep. Entrances are just big enough to admit an owl's body; presumably this helps prevent larger predators from getting in. Western Screech-Owls sometimes take over the nests of other species. In breeding season, the male roosts near the nest cavity. During the last weeks of the nestling period, the female also leaves the nest, often roosting close enough to the male that their bodies touch. Both adults guard the entrance from crows, jays, and other predators. The male provides almost all the food for the female and young during nesting, while the female incubates eggs and broods the baby owls. She stays with her young constantly for the first 3 weeks, then takes increasingly long breaks to help the male hunt. Owlets leave the nest before they can fly well. They remain with their parents for about 5 weeks after leaving the nest site.
Western Screech-Owls are carnivores. They eat mostly small mammals, thought they also eat birds, fish, amphibians, and invertebrates. Their diet can vary tremendously from place to place and from season to season. Mammal prey includes pocket mice, deermice, grasshopper mice, shrews, woodrats, kangaroo rats, as well as bats and occasionally rabbits. Invertebrate prey include insects, crayfish, worms, slugs, snails, and whip scorpions. They are sit-and-wait predators, perching inconspicuously on tree branches and watching the ground for prey. These owls sometimes perch above creeks, watching for crayfish to emerge from the shallows. They also glean invertebrates from foliage and catch flying insects in midair, or bats leaving a roost. Due to their small size, they are also predated by larger animals such as hawks, skunks, snakes, or larger owls.
Heard at dusk and into the night, the Western Screech-Owl's most distinctive vocalization is its "bouncing ball" song: a series of 5–9 short, whistled hoots, speeding up ping-pong-ball fashion toward the end. The male uses this for territorial and courtship advertising, often calling from a nest tree or a prospective nest site. In duets sung by a mating pair, the female's notes are interspersed with the male's—her voice higher than her mate's, despite her larger size. To stay in contact, pairs of screech-owls use a short "double trill" call; when agitated, they make a barking sound. Adult females whinny in response to the male's bouncing ball song, and to solicit feeding and copulation. Western Screech-Owls snap their bills when approached closely by a potential predator such as a crow, squirrel, or human. Nestlings begin doing this when they are about 8 days old. Here is a link so you can listen to this bird too.
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4886917
The chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina) is a species of New World sparrow, a passerine bird in the family Passerellidae. It is widespread, fairly tame, and common across most of its North American range. Chipping sparrow adult upperparts are streaked with dark rusty brown and gray, with a gray rump and head, with bright chestnut crown, white eyebrow, narrow black eyeline, and black bill. Note that the cheeks and nape of neck are clear gray. Underparts are light gray.
You’ll find Chipping Sparrows around trees, even though these birds spend a lot of time foraging on the ground. Look for them in grassy forests, woodlands and edges, parks and shrubby or tree-lined backyards. Chipping Sparrows seem to gravitate toward evergreens in places where these trees are available. They also use aspen, birch, oak, pecan, and eucalyptus trees. In the mountains, you can find these birds all the way up to treeline.
In summer, male Chipping Sparrows defend territories against other Chipping Sparrows, but often tolerate other species as long as they don’t go too near the nest. Females typically build their nests between 3 and 10 feet off the ground, hidden in foliage at the tip of a branch. They gravitate toward evergreen trees, but also nest in crabapples, honeysuckle tangles, maples, ornamental shrubs, and other deciduous species. Females can be finicky about placement, often beginning to build a nest, then leaving to begin in another spot. Males guard females as they build nests, but they don’t help build. It takes the female 3 to 4 days to finish her nest, a loose cup of rootlets and dried grasses so flimsy you can often see through it. She lines the nest with animal hair and fine plant fibers. Finished nests measure about 4.5 inches across and 2.2 inches deep. After the breeding season, Chipping Sparrows form flocks of several dozen, foraging together among grasses and at bird feeders. Their flight pattern is energetic, straight, and only slightly undulating.
Chipping Sparrows mainly eat seeds of a great variety of grasses and herbs. During the breeding season they also hunt for protein-rich insects, and these form a large part of their summer diet. Chipping Sparrows sometimes eat small fruits such as cherries. Its small size makes these birds vulnerable to many threats. Other birds, mammals, and snakes will prey on both the sparrow and its eggs. Raptors, such as Cooper’s hawk and American kestrel will target adults in flight or while on their nest, but even American crows and blue jays are a threat. In addition to these obvious predators, the eggs of the chipping sparrow may be displaced by the brown-headed cowbird. This parasitic bird lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. The other bird tends to the egg and baby as if it were its own. The chipping sparrow is a frequent target of the cowbird.
Male Chipping Sparrows sing a long, dry trill of evenly spaced, almost mechanical-sounding chips. It’s one of the most common sounds of open woods in spring – but be careful, because Dark-eyed Juncos sound very similar (though a bit more musical) and often live in the same habitats. Songs are about 3.6 seconds long on average, consisting of around 55 nearly identical chip notes in a row. Year round, both sexes use a single chip note to stay in contact with others. Upon sighting a hawk, Chipping Sparrows give a long zeeeee call as an alarm. During courtship, females make a soft, rapid see-see-see-see to attract the attention of her mate. Here is a link so you can listen to this bird too.
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4876690
The gray kingbird or grey kingbird (Tyrannus dominicensis), also known as pitirre, petchary or white-breasted kingbird, is a passerine bird in the tyrant flycatchers family Tyrannidae. The species was first described on the island of Hispaniola, then called Santo Domingo, thus the dominicensis name. Large headed and heavy billed like other kingbirds, the Gray Kingbird has ashy gray upperparts that grade into dark gray-brown wings and tail, with the hint of a dark mask through the eyes.
Gray Kingbirds inhabit open and semiopen habitats, often in coastal areas. In Florida, they are relatively common in towns and agricultural areas, as well as edges of mangrove forest. They occasionally nest as far as 15 miles away from the coast. They frequent trees on the edges of native forest, which in southern Florida might include sea grape, gumbo limbo, Jamaican dogwood, West Indian mahogany, green buttonwood, pigeon plum, silver buttonwood, casuarina, and pitch apple. Breeding habitats as far west as Mississippi and occasionally as far north as North Carolina are likewise coastal, with a mixture of pine and oak in residential and resort settings. On Caribbean islands, Gray Kingbirds also frequent savanna and mountain forests with pine and oak, especially where there is partial deforestation. Although they normally occur in habitats below 1,600 feet, there are reports from sites as high as 9,842 feet in the Andes. Wintering birds from Florida use a wide variety of habitats in the Caribbean and northern South America, including not just coastal lowlands but also the llanos (grasslands) of Venezuela, deforested openings in tropical forest, and even large cities in the northern Andes such as Bogotá. At night, Gray Kingbirds sometimes roost with other Tyrannus flycatchers; their roosts in red mangrove forests may include 150 or more birds.
Soon after returning to Florida in spring, male Gray Kingbirds claim territories of about 2–4 acres by calling and flying around the area. Pairs soon form, their bonds obvious in a flight display in which they fly straight up or in a spiral, crossing each other's paths, calling loudly and snapping their bills as they rise. Paired Gray Kingbirds call and flutter their wings when they meet back at the nest site, a greeting that probably also helps maintain their pair bond. Their generally brash behavior notwithstanding, Gray Kingbirds are surprisingly tolerant of others in their species, though males sometimes give chase early in the breeding season or raise their crest in aggressive display, revealing their scarlet central crown feathers. They frequently chase cowbirds away from the nesting area. Nests are set in a tree fork or on a horizontal limb, often over water, typically about 10 feet up in the tree. One nest measured 9.5 inches across and 2.8 inches tall, with an interior cup 3.4 inches across and 1.4 inches deep. The female constructs a rough cup nest of twigs, stems, and grasses, sometimes lining it with moss, hair, and rootlets. Both members of the pair gather nesting material, but the female selects the nest site, builds the bulky twig nest (as the male observes and guards her), and incubates the eggs, though males may help incubate on occasion. Both adults share chick-rearing duties. After the young have fledged, Gray Kingbirds eventually gather in small flocks prior to migration. During winter, they gather into large roosts in the evening, usually in mangroves if they are in a coastal part of the Caribbean or northern South America. Here they often chase each other and call vigorously before settling in for the night.
Gray Kingbirds prey largely on flying insects which they take in swift, direct flights, sometimes of 100 yards or more. Often the pursuit of prey involves steep dives and deft, zigzagging maneuvers that have given them the nickname “spitfire” in some places (after the British fighter plane of World War II). They usually return to their perch to strip prey of wings or stinger, then consume it. Gray Kingbirds also fly out to glean insects from vegetation, the ground, the surface of a pond, vehicles, or buildings. They even eat small lizards, usually striking them against a branch before consuming them, and there are reports of them eating hummingbirds, and minnows. When eating small fruits, they may hover or perch to pluck them. Other prey include beetles, weevils, bees, hornets, wasps, dragonflies, butterflies, moths, flies, and fly larvae taken from beach wrack. They also eat fruits of royal palm, espino, lantana, moral, coco plum, and West Indian birch.
Males sing a “dawn song;” a somewhat harsh, rolling, rhythmic chatter resembling a longer version of the typical call. Both sexes make a loud, rolling pitirre! throughout the year. Here
Saw this big white vespid cruising the berry bushes. Frightening, but also so very cool.
The federal penalty for damaging or destroying interstate pipelines is already a felony charge mandating up to twenty years in prison. But the industry’s proposed additions, described in executives’ congressional testimony and policy briefs posted online, would widen the definition of and punishment for “attacks” on pipelines using vague language that could implicate a far broader set of activities used to protest fossil fuel infrastructure. Such language has already begun to make its way into the legislative effort to reauthorize the pipeline safety administration as Congress decides the agency’s funding and legislative mandates for the next few years.
According to a policy brief on “2023 Pipeline Safety Reauthorization Legislative Priorities” published last year by the American Petroleum Institute — a major trade group representing oil and gas companies — new pipeline safety legislation should “fill gaps in current law” with “additional measures covering disruption of service and attacks on construction sites.”
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s draft reauthorization bill, approved in March, would add “impairing the operation of” interstate pipelines, “damaging or destroying such a facility under construction,” and even “attempting or conspiring” to do so as felony activities punishable by up to twenty years in prison.
One incident of how things go usually (there are more in the text)
By the time the water protectors got to the swamp, Savage said, they “had done everything — they went to public meetings, they had petitions, they wrote letters, they tried to meet with the governor — they did everything they tell you in school, to participate and use your civil obligation in your community.” Despite their best efforts in one of the most oil- and gas-friendly states in the country, said Savage, “nobody was listening.”
As Savage’s reporting revealed, the off-duty Louisiana law enforcement who began violently arresting protesters after the new law was enforced were working side jobs for the pipeline company.
“I would’ve similarly documented whatever the sheriff’s deputies and Energy Transfer had planned that day — had I not been handcuffed in the back of a deputy’s squad car,” Savage wrote about her arrest.
While Energy Transfer paid local officials to arrest protesters, it was quietly breaking the law itself. Energy Transfer was later found guilty of trespassing on private property by working on land it didn’t have permission to build on, but it was allowed to continue construction with only a $450 fine. The sixteen water protectors who were arrested and charged with felonies under the state’s new law had permission from some landowners to protest — and were even asked to help them defend their land.
In 2021, a local district attorney dropped the water protectors’ charges, along with Savage’s.
SpaceX's growing Starlink megaconstellation could be hindering the Earth's atmosphere from healing itself.
In a new study, researchers from the University of Southern California estimated the harmful effects from satellites injecting harmful pollutants such as aluminum oxides into the upper atmosphere as they burn up during reentry.
These dying satellites may even be contributing to "significant ozone depletion," according to the researchers. The ozone layer is the Earth's "sunscreen" that shields us from too much UV radiation from the Sun.
While researchers have largely focused on the pollutants being released by rockets as they launch, we've only begun to understand the implications of having thousands of retired and malfunctioning satellites burn up in the atmosphere.
And that's only becoming more relevant, as SpaceX has already launched almost 6,000 Starlink satellites to date, and is planning to add tens of thousands more — orbital ambitions that are now inspiring competing satellite constellations.
"Only in recent years have people started to think this might become a problem," said coauthor and University of Southern California astronautics researcher Joseph Wang in a statement. "We were one of the first teams to look at what the implication of these facts might be."
#Poking Holes
Since it's practically impossible to get accurate readings from the kind of pollutants satellites release as they scream back through the atmosphere, scientists can only estimate their effects on the surrounding environment.
By studying how common metals used in the construction of satellites interact with each other, the team estimated that the presence of aluminum increased in the atmosphere by almost 30 percent in 2022 alone.
They found that a 550-pound satellite generates roughly 66 pounds of aluminum oxide nanoparticles during reentry, which would take up to 30 years to drift down into the stratosphere.
In total, if constellations from the likes of SpaceX continue to grow as planned, the levels of aluminum oxides in the atmosphere could increase by a staggering 646 percent over natural levels every year.
And that doesn't bode well, considering we've only begun to study the phenomenon.
"The environmental impacts from the reentry of satellites are currently poorly understood," the researchers note in their paper. "As reentry rates increase, it is crucial to further explore the concerns highlighted in this study."
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