Colton the fish squeezer🐟🪴📚🏕️🐝
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fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Colton the fish squeezer🐟🪴📚🏕️🐝
@fishsqueezer.bsky.social
3.1K followers 1.3K following 5.5K posts
Biologist in Idaho, lover of nature, taking pictures, books, family, art. Politically active & outraged, but that's not why I'm on Bluesky. Views my own.

Profile photos ALT text:
pfp: 4-frame collage with spouse, horse, Monstera, fish
banner: beaver pond
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fishsqueezer.bsky.social
What to make of the phlox

that blooms out of season,

mere moments before killing frosts,

when with no hope of fitness,

no rhyme and no reason,

brings beauty regardless of costs?

#nativeplants 🌱🌿
A tiny purple phlox flower with a white center and yellow stamens perches atop desiccated foliage at my fingertips.
November 19, 2025 at 9:52 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
And of course where would we all be without our beloved "bugs" (that rarely share our affection and would kill me with a glare if they could)? #Inverts
An oil beetle crawls menacingly out of a clump of creeping phlox. It is jet black with like...sci-fi mecha armor. It's kind of Darth Vader-esque. A giant water bug held between my fingers. It is brown and pointy-ovoid with long grasping legs that end in claws. It is in a bit of a boxing position, and glares with alien eyes and a formidable hemipteran mouth that I will go nowhere near. A mother female bark scorpion fluoresces neon green under a blacklight. Her babies are riding her back, but they don't fluoresce yet. A yellow mayfly perches on the tailgate of my pickup. Its yellow abdominal segments are outlined in blackish brown. It's bright yellow, spherical eyes have pupils that are slightly crossed as it stares at the camera in what I interpret as an irritate expression. It also has two long black antenna-like front legs that are kind of uncomfortable.
November 19, 2025 at 12:37 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Here are some angry plants as well. The first one (Puya alpestris) will one day be absolutely gorgeous with turquoise flowers but in the meantime might be proto-carnivorous because the recurved spines occasionally catch and kill birds, sheep, etc that then decompose and fertilize it. 😬🪴🌱
A rosette of straplike leaves with silvery undersides and dozens of recurved spines. There is a crab spider sitting in the center. It and its relatively have been known to kill vertebrates. https://www.iflscience.com/the-flowering-sheep-eater-plant-has-a-formidable-reputation-73887 A close-up of dozens of spines from a fishhook barrel cactus silhouetted against the sky. A white orchid flower sometimes called the daddy long legs orchid has a fringed lip with elongated white petals and sepals that are beautiful but also reminiscent of an albino spider and slightly creepy. A boldly patterned, star-shaped flower with a ring in the center and another star-shaped structure in the center of that. It is cream colored with hundreds of black spots arranged in a vague radial pattern. You can't tell from the photo, but it smells like rotting meat to attract flies.
November 19, 2025 at 12:31 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
There are definitely some hostile looking mushrooms in the world. 🍄📷
A somewhat menacing looking mushroom with multiple concentric shelf-like layers that appears to have been infected with a purplish gray, furry mold. A sculpted puffball mushrooms looks resembles a white baseball that is covered in pyramidal spikes like a caltrop. An Amanita mushroom emerges from the forest litter. It is spherical and covered with cream-colored spikes that look eerily like teeth. A white blob of a mushroom grows from a log suspended over a stream. It is uncomfortably covered in glistening droplets of some kind of exudate as if it is sweating.
November 19, 2025 at 12:05 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Kinda interesting to compare water year precipitation with snowpack at a continental scale. Most of the western US has been very wet since October 1, but there is almost no snowpack anywhere except at the very highest elevations because it has been so ridiculously warm. #hydrology #wx
Two maps of the western U.S. The map on the left shows water year precipitation, which is mostly green to dark blue dots (90% to >150% of average precipitation). The same map on the right is overlaid with snowpack for the water year, and it is almost all red dots (<50%).
November 18, 2025 at 11:18 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
It's been extremely warm recently so despite the wet weather there is no snow in the mountains. On the bright side, there are 100 mushrooms. Look how festive!

#wx #MushroomMonday 🍄📷
A conifer with a star on top and some lights down the sides is surrounded at the base with a fairy ring of large brown mushrooms. Some mushrooms that look like nipples growing from mossy grass. A cluster of mushrooms that look like a pile of dinner rolls or pączki. A zoomed out photo of the pączki mushrooms showing multiple clusters of dozens of mushrooms growing out of some grass that is littered with fallen leaves.
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Hahaha...I like yours on so many levels. Here's mine:
A ripoff of the black and white "You wouldn't download a car" propaganda ad that instead says "YOU WOULDN'T PROPAGATE A PLANT". I would.
November 17, 2025 at 5:37 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
I made a fun food for the kid's birthday party yesterday: toad in a hole! 🍜 I think it's just normal British food, but it was new for us.

He loved it, although I just made plain brown gravy instead of the onion marmalade gravy (wtf is onion marmalade? WW2 starvation food?) for obvious reasons. 🤮
Me posing in front of a muffin tin full of puffy golden pastries and a little pot of brown gravy.
November 16, 2025 at 5:20 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
It's fun when somebody posts to these dead threads so they pop back up months later. Here's some more:
A brown and black Coturnix quail sits in a metal tablespoon on a red and white woven baking sheet with a red wire whisk in the background. A pink flamingo stares at the camera, with its being looking strangely flaccid and its neck apparent descending into infinity. A white-crowned sparrow sits on a wire and stares at the camera. Its yellow beak looks like something from Wallace and Gromit. It is mostly gray with a black cap that has three white stripes. A bald eagle stares imperiously at the camera in this close-up portrait. You can see that the shafts of its white facial feathers are darker. Its beak and eyes are gold, and it has strong eyebrows. The downturned cream-colored gape flange makes it look like it's disappointed in you.
November 14, 2025 at 10:57 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
And GUESS WHAT SHIRT was incidentally waiting on the top of my tee shirt stack this morning?! GERONIMO!*

*we don't need to talk about how my combination of colorblindness and mental health means that I choose my outfits based on the order they come out of the laundry.
Me wearing a heathered gray shirt with an outline of the state of Idaho and a beaver with airman's goggles parachuting into it. The corner of the state has the words "The Great Idaho Beaver Drop of 48 quote with a Meateater logo along the bottom line of the state.
November 14, 2025 at 4:03 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
HOWEVER, instead of just making a fun kid's toy, I inadvertently created what is basically an atlatl. The very first test throw launched the damn dart all the way across the kitchen AND living room, punching it through both panes of glass in the living room window. SHIT.
Me in an ugly shirt and pose with a surprised look on my face. Next to me is a window with a spiderweb of cracks radiating outward from a dart that has penetrated both panes of glass.
November 14, 2025 at 6:40 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
I cut an X in the tip so you can load darts into it and pretend to say a spell while you launch the dart at the candy filled balloons and pop them. 2/3
The same wand, but with a dart loaded into the tip.
November 14, 2025 at 6:40 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
My almost eleven year old wants to have a magical/wizard themed birthday party this Saturday and so I made him this wand for candy balloon darts. 1/3
A magic wand made of a European bird cherry branch where the handle retains bark around excised knots and is bordered by black electrical tape. The other slightly more than half of the wand has been carved down to raw wood.
November 14, 2025 at 6:40 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
🟢
A view looking straight upward into the branches of a conifer tree where each limb has been completely coated in moss. They look like giant, furry corndogs.
November 14, 2025 at 12:14 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
your fault for wearing the Gary slippers
Two fluffy slippers from an online advertisement that are shaped and colored like Spongebob's pet snail, Gary.
November 13, 2025 at 11:00 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Pleione maculata has elegant, white, spear shaped petals and sepals and an intricately marked, tubular lip with purple stripes and a yellow splash of color.
November 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Habenaria medusae is a ground orchid that sends up a some of fantastically spiky, pure white flowers that look like exploding fireworks in this image of around twenty flowers from the middle of the spike.
November 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Paphiopedilum gratrixianum 'Lynn x Margeaux has ravishingly handdome flowers that glisten like blown glass. The dorsal sepal is pink with Father pink striations and lines of burgundy spots. The labellum and petals are peach, and the inside of the labellum is yellow. There are six perfect flowers in frame, it's a pretty amazing plant.
November 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
LC. 'Puppy Love' is a classic Cattleya shape with huge pink blooms with yellow and purple, ruffled lips.
November 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Oncidium 'Volcano Hula Halau' has multiple spikes of dozens of red and cream flowers.
November 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Some members' #orchids from last night's club meeting. One of the best show and tells we've had for a long time. Also a wonderful guest lecture about terrarium orchids and companion plants by Michael from Mizu Mori Tropicals and great snacks and treats. 10/10 evening overall. 🪴🌱
Cycd. 'Leopards Gold' has huge, waxy yellow flowers with maroon (?) spots and large, curve pendulous column.
November 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
A rope swing below Mooney Falls...
Me swinging off a rope from a tree into a pool of water before a ~2 meter travertine waterfall. In the distant background is another waterfall a couple hundred feet tall.
November 12, 2025 at 7:20 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
I've never ridden on a real train before, but I'm taking the Amtrak down the Columbia River Gorge to Portland right now in the 43rd year of my life. This is a very different, pleasant vibe. Also watching across the river at a freeway packed with long distance drivers & just...wondering.
A view of the rising sun over the water of the Columbia River from my spacious seat on the second floor of a rail car.
November 11, 2025 at 4:04 PM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Wait, your whole profile is based on adoration of the Triceratops? It's not just a pun? Because I have little kids, which means there are dinosaurs coming out of my ears. Do you know about the humble tricerataco?
A privacy-obscured toddler sitting in a white booster seat plays with a green plastic Triceratops that is holding a crunchy taco.
November 11, 2025 at 11:58 AM
fishsqueezer.bsky.social
Finally reading Braiding Sweetgrass (thanks for the book, @saimihanma.bsky.social). 🌱 #nativeplants

"Wild strawberry shortcake was the best possible present...it was a gift that could never be bought."

That line particularly touched me & reminded me of this gift from my son:
A boy's hand with 8 small wild strawberries, not all of which are completely ripe.
November 10, 2025 at 8:59 PM