MikeF

A few more birds during a gorgeous day at the Marine Nature Study Area, on March 10, but very quiet. As though the marsh residents had been shell-shocked by this winter's intense cold and major snow cover. Winter Ducks are moving out, and soon spring migrants will arrive. A day later, Ospreys arrived.
#birds #birding #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #biodiversity #naturephotography #wildlifephotography

Beautiful Mallard pair at Marine Nature Study Area yesterday on the first mild day since our extreme winter began. The Mallards were scarfing up birdseed at the feeder, the two making like small dust-busters, only interrupted by occasional playful nips by the male at his bff.
#birds #birding #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #biodiversity #naturephotography #wildlifephotography #Mallards

Another Jones Beach, NY bird last Saturday, an unseasonal Piping Plover. They usually don't return from their winter range in parts south until March or April, but in recent years, as the climate has warmed, a rare few have remained up here all winter. This winter that may have posed a problem for pipers lime this one, as the polar vortex brought weeks of intense cold and major snowfalls. Food became scarce. This Plover was out and about foraging on this first mild day in a while, and seemed to be behaving erratically.

Piping Plovers are an endangered species due to habit loss and climate change, including rising sea levels. Concerted education and outreach efforts and protection of nesting colonies (often on public beaches) have led to recovery in some places, but overall, numbers continue to decline. The Audubon Society estimates that they stand to lose half their current range by 2050 if global warming continues at its current rate.
#climatechange #extinction #birds #birding #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #biodiversity #naturephotography #wildlifephotography #shorebirds #peeps #pipingplover

Common Loon at Jones Beach, NY, on 2/28. Symbol of Minnesotan resilience and persistence in the face of ICE repression!

#birds #birding #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #biodiversity #naturephotography #wildlifephotography

Some photos of Purple Pipers at Jones Beach, NY, last Saturday (Feb. 28).

Unusually there were dozens if not more of these shorebirds present, and not only on their favored rocky habitats, but running around on the beach in multitudes with Sanderlings and Dunlins. I suspect the intense cold and snow storms we've had over the past two months affected their food supply on the jetties, leading them to forage with their cousins. These birds nest in the Arctic tundra and overwinter in our middle latitudes. In a sense, by favoring the expansion of the polar vortex, climate change was bringing the Arctic conditions they migrate away from right to them.
#birds #birding #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #biodiversity #naturephotography #wildlifephotography #winterbirds #shorebirds #peeps #PurpleSandpiper

“Mobilize Everybody”: Minneapolis Organizers Share Lessons From Their Struggle

ttps://truthout.org/articles/mobilize-everybody-minneapolis-organizers-share-lessons-from-their-struggle/

#abolishIce #fascism #maga #minneapolis

Lessons from Minneapolis

Organization, spontaneity, and the mass strike

https://tempestmag.org/2026/02/lessons-from-minneapolis/

#abolishice #massstrike

How to Build a Real General Strike Against ICE

Minnesota shows what’s possible—here’s how we turn that spark into the kind of disruptive power that can actually stop ICE

https://www.laborpolitics.com/p/how-to-organize-a-real-general-strike

#Minneapolis #generalstrike #maga #fascism #abolishice

Yesterday, I heard a ruckus in the yard, and looked out to see this gorgeous female Sharp-shinned Hawk with her prey, a White-throated Sparrow, standing on the snow. I went to get my camera, but figured she wouldn't stick around. But, as it turned out, she flew up to a branch about 25 feet away from me and leisurely dined for about 15 minutes.

#birds #birding #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #biodiversity #naturephotography #wildlife #SharpshinnedHawk

https://mondoweiss.net/2026/01/we-cannot-separate-imperialism-from-domestic-militarization-understanding-the-links-between-ice-gaza-and-u-s-foreign-policy/
#abolishice #fascism #gaza #genocide

From an "Other 98%" post on fb: "Minneapolis isn’t “responding” to ICE anymore. Minneapolis is organizing to OUTLAST ICE. After weeks of escalated federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota, the Twin Cities are doing something the rest of the country keeps saying it wants but rarely builds: an everyday, neighborhood-level infrastructure that makes state violence harder to pull off in silence. Here’s what that infrastructure looks like on the ground: Signal chats that spread sightings in minutes, people walking around with whistles, neighbors showing up fast when someone’s being cornered, and ordinary folks choosing “I’m watching” as a civic identity. In a Jacobin interview, Minneapolis organizer Aru Shiney-Ajay describes a staggering density of participation, including neighborhood chats reaching “over 4 percent” of residents and rapid-response patrol chats that hit 1,000 people in a single neighborhood by late morning. That matters because ICE thrives on logistics and isolation. You cannot “community statement” your way out of a federal dragnet. You have to interrupt the machine where it eats and sleeps and hides. That’s why Minneapolis didn’t just stay defensive. It went on offense. Activists have targeted the “pillars” that let ICE operate like an occupying force: hotels, rental cars, corporate partners, the quiet, normal places where repression refuels. A local campaign that pushed a Hilton-branded hotel to refuse service to ICE, triggering national blowback and a corporate scramble. What makes this smart isn’t the spectacle. It’s the leverage. A regime can ignore outrage. It can’t ignore friction inside the supply chain that keeps its agents moving. Then came the proof-of-concept flex: the January 23 “ICE Out” general strike day in Minneapolis and beyond, called by unions and community groups as a refusal of business as usual under terror. This was a muscle-building exercise: can we coordinate, can we hold lines, can we protect each other, can we make the city ungovernable for people who think they can hunt humans here? This is what resistance looks like when it grows up. Not just rage. Routines. Not just protest. Infrastructure. And that’s the real exportable lesson: if you want ICE out of your city, don’t wait for permission from pundits or politicians. Build networks that make disappearance difficult, complicity expensive, and solidarity automatic." #abolishice #Minneapolis #maga #fascism #antifascism