beneath the lunar sway

Weird

Uncomfortable

Maedhros: nnnng AHHHH g g g

Fëanor, plucking him from his cradle: SO! You want your blanket refolded into a triangle and not a square. Admirable aesthetic judgement. It shall be done.

(With his other arm he refolds it with unnecessary geometric precision)

(Maedhros grabs for Fëanor’s circlet while drooling on his collar)

Fëanor: Ah! An eye for keen workmanship over fine raiment.

Maedhros: bBbbbBb (wriggling and kicking)

Fëanor: you desire to be borne aloft that you may inspect the proportions of the room by every angle!

(He grasps him under the arms and banks around the room a few times like a great eagle)

(Maedhros shrieks in delight)

They're smart fuckin birds, I believe in them

Lace Monitor (Varanus varius), "Bell's Phase", family Varanidae, found in eastern Australia

I don't always manage to keep the despair at bay. But I've found meaning in it. A lot of things and places that I took pictures of when I started have been destroyed or changed completely now. I wasn't expecting the extent of it. Huge native trees cut down, beautiful landscapes domesticated, lingering patches of native wildflowers wiped out, meandering mountain streams channeled, and at this point all the devastating effects of 3 years of severe drought which turns thriving populations of fish and turtles and waterbirds into sets of a few struggling individuals: It's been hard to watch. :read more:

Some things have been destroyed by storms, some by drought, some by new insects, especially spotted lantern flies, but most by people, some by people who just don't care and some by supposed government environmental departments who should know better but who don't think in terms of one small place or ever pay enough attention to that place to really know what would be best for it. They cut down more magnificent old native trees than anyone else. In the park near my house the decision was made to spray herbicide at the base of every tree, no matter how beautiful, even the specimen trees of special species that people paid to have planted in memory of loved ones. Since they started that about five years ago, maybe more, I have watched gorgeous healthy trees—flowering cherries and beautiful firs, very old pines and many others—deteriorate badly. My favorite cherry's trunk is riddled with fungus. A magnificent Fraser fir is in awful condition and as now has happened with several old and stately trees, will probably be cut down with the excuse that it was sick, never acknowledging that it was caused by spraying the roots with plant killer. I could go on but won't. I certainly have not helped with your despair, I'm afraid. I suppose what keeps me going at this point is that all of this has made it more obvious to me that I should capture whatever beauty I find and share it because I know without a doubt that it could be gone tomorrow. My town used to have an extraordinary number of breeding bluebirds for example, but three or four different projects by different entities, not related, eliminated all but one or two of the nesting sites so that now I am pleased when I hear any bluebirds at all. Now I always try to get a picture because it's real to me that one year there may not be any bluebirds here at all.

(Bonus: perhaps one a wizard might keep as a pet?)

Thanks for all the nice pictures of creatures! :D

Ohhhh, cuties?

Rubber Boas (Charina bottae), family Boidae, found in the western United States

photograph by Dick Bartlett

photograph by Matthias Lemm

photograph by Alan Rickers

Desert Rosy Boa (Lichanura roseofusca gracia), family Boidae, California, USA

Photograph by Daniel Koury