Tim O'Connell
LightNews LightNews
banner
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Tim O'Connell
@tinosaurs.bsky.social
2.3K followers 1.9K following 770 posts
wildlife; birds; landscapes; 322 ppm; dad vibes; science; critical thinking; woke = compliment; views mine; don't care if you call them "seagulls".

Assoc. Prof. in NREM, OKState.
Past-President, Wilson Ornithological Society
https://timoconnell.wordpress.
Posts Replies Media Videos
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Do I have quibbles about #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge? Sure, but again, the only vision of *heaven* that ever mattered to me was to be some kind of eternal observer of the passage of time and parade of life on our planet.

Yeah, stuff like this:
Close up of Smilodon populator tucking into a fresh carcass of Maurichenia, South America, ca: 500k years ago.
November 30, 2025 at 3:17 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
You know her! You love her! If you've met her, she's probably bitten you. (Sorry about that.) She's been my companion for I think every #AwesomeBirds clip I've shared. It's #Nellie, and it's her birthday! #BlueSkyDogs #DogsOfBlueSky
Strawberry blonde dog with a docked tail and whitish face with a black nose looking back at camera while she's in an autumn woodlot. I think she heard a squirrel. Corgi-faced dog with one ear up and one down, sitting on dry grass and facing the Sun with eyes closed. Middle-aged white guy watching an OKC Thunder basketball game with cute dog curled up on his chest, seemingly sound asleep. Bright sunny day with green trees and blue sky – strawberry-blonde, Corgi-faced dog is sitting on a brick wall staring into the distance at the neighbors' chickens.
November 29, 2025 at 4:28 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
New global #peace #rankings just dropped: www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/u...

Here are top 10, bottom 10, and the 5 countries ranked above and below the USA. We clock in at #128 out of 163, and I find that embarrassing and obscene.
November 26, 2025 at 5:47 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Back in July of 2014, I met this jaunty #SavannahSparrow in #Wolfville, #NovaScotia, #Canada.

Now you've met him, too.

#ornithology #birding #WilsonOrnithologicalSociety #AssociationOfFieldOrnithologists #ArcadiaUniversity
Streaky brown sparrow with a bit of yellow at the front of his eyebrow stripe, perched on a large rock in a field of grasses, looking right and alert on a sunny day.
November 25, 2025 at 6:17 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
The avian default of 3 forward and 1 back is #anisodactyl, i.e., "digits not the same". The 2X2 pattern is #zygodactyl, i.e. "digits yoked". BUT, *which toes* point where matters.

Toes are numbered, with #1 (our "big toe") in opposition for birds; they've lost #5 (our "pinkie toe")...
November 20, 2025 at 2:55 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
My little sun-dog Nellie hopes you've had a wonderful day.

#dogsofBlueSky
#DogsAreStillGood
photo of a little dog with one up ear and one down ear lying on the grass, alert and facing directly into a brilliant Sun low on the horizon.
November 15, 2025 at 12:17 AM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
I don't mean to brag, but...

I'm in the top 10 for both number of #observations and #species of prey items #cached by #LoggerheadShrike in the @inaturalist.bsky.social #project, #LarderLocker!

#biodiversity #oklahoma #wildlife #grasslands #birds #butcherbird #shrike #larder
November 9, 2025 at 11:11 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Happy #Halloween to all you nice people here on the #Bluesky.

Treat yourself to a great spooky movie today, and, look for a discounted #CouponDay to come see the attractions of my newest theme park off the coast of Costa Rica.

#MonsterHouse
#JurassicPark
advertisement for the 2006 animated Halloween movie, Monster House. old guy with gray beard wearing white pants and a dull, white shirt holding a walking stick with an acrylic orb at the top –– cosplay for Jurassic Park's John Hammond.
October 31, 2025 at 6:50 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
I make #ornithology content for my own enjoyment because there might be only 2 or 3 folks who would get something like this. If you're one of them, the correct reply would be "heh, nice." Also, we should hang out.

#EdSullivanShow
#TheDoors
#JimMorrison
#OxygenStress
#BarHeadedGoose
#Physiology
Conventionally attractive white dude with flowing brown locks wearing a leather jacket sings, eyes closed, into a microphone in front of a stage set that is primarily red.
October 22, 2025 at 3:54 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
#WorldMigratoryBirdDay #birds #birding #migration #Conservation #wildlife #biodiversity #Oklahoma

paynecountyaudubonsociety.com/field-trips-...
You know you wanna join me for a bird walk on Sunday.
October 10, 2025 at 9:33 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Had an event in southeastern #Kansas this weekend. It was a great time with both established and budding #ornithologists.

Driving the backroads on the way home though, I noticed something sobering: massive fields of #corn #maize and #soybean going unharvested, presumably 'cause no markets.
September 29, 2025 at 1:56 AM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Had a beautiful experience yesterday on a field trip with our local #PayneCountyAudubonSociety. A #MississippiKite caught a #cidada and landed in a tree above our group. It plucked off a wing as it began feeding, and it slowly helicoptered down such that I caught it. #birding #Oklahoma #biodiversity
Lance-shaped, transparent wing of a cicada in the palm of a white guy's hand.
August 31, 2025 at 4:02 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
In my #pollinator patches this weekend where an acre of #Bermudagrass #lawn used to be: #PassionflowerFleaBeetle (#lifer beetle!), Snow-on-the-mountain, and a #skipper #nectaring on #TallThistle.

Plant #natives for #biodiversity! (Or don't; just don't cut 'em when you mow.)
Small, dark, red beetle with a smooth and glossy black patch covering its elytra. It's on a tri-lobed leaf of passionflower. Tiny clusters of light green flowers surrounded by showy sepals (bracts?) that are bright white with a green stripe down the midrib. It looks like a portrait of a cluster of four big flowers, but it's really a portrait of four clusters of about 20 tiny flowers. This is the Euphorbia species common known as Snow-on-the-mountain in the Great Plains. Not exactly sure which skipper butterfly this is, but it's roughly triangular in shape and golden-yellow in color with big, dark eyes. Its antennae are spread laterally and its tiny proboscis is probing into one of maybe 100 narrow, pink flowers forming the spiky inflorescence of a tall thistle.
August 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
@npr.org reported that a Senator vowed to pursue "the most crippling sanctions" on Russia and I was like "THERE ARE MORE DAMAGING LEVELS OF SANCTIONS WE HAVEN'T EVENT TRIED?!!"

WTF are we doing? Are we trying to get Russia out of Ukraine, or not?

We had Putin on US soil and we let him go.
Photo of a small strong man shaking hands with a large weak man. The weak man is wearing several pounds of make-up and hair-spray. Both men absolutely suck, and are some of the worst, most vile creatures our species has ever produced.
August 17, 2025 at 1:44 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
abcnews.go.com/Politics/tru...

Even if #Virginia #Giuffre was treated well during her time employed at Mar-a-Lago, Trump knew damn well that #Epstein and #Maxwell were grooming and trafficking her.

So... did Trump report this to the FBI? Call 911? All he did was ban Epstein from Mar-a-Lago?!
Image of Trump in the Oval Office holding a large white cardboard onto which the following words have been added (by me): "I broke up with my best buddy Jeffrey Epstein because he stole a teenaged girl who was working in my spa at Mar-a-Lago."
August 9, 2025 at 3:23 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
But powering Voyagers is kinda "object in motion stays in motion", right? Other than a bit of heat and occasional thruster boost I assume they don't need much.

A lunar base with life support, communications, science labs, etc. sounds like some kind of electric plant would be needed?
August 6, 2025 at 12:48 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Apologies to any #followers I might have accidentally deleted this week as I've been #purging spam and some non-mutuals.

Here's an image of a #RoughleafDogwood #Cornus #drummondi in fruit in my backyard. #AmericanRobins are gobbling them up as fast as they can #ripen.

#Oklahoma #biodiversity
Close-up photo of a broad-leafed shrub with dark gray-green leaves, dull red stems, and small, round fruits at the tips of the branchlets in various stages of ripening from dark, avocado green to a dull, ghostly white. About half of the branchlets are naked, their fruits plucked and swallowed by American Robins.
July 31, 2025 at 1:26 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
I've lived long enough to see many beginnings of the end, but this one (Kavanaugh's fake swearing in to the Supreme Court at the White House) might be most significant. The loss of the Third Branch meant that we could no longer depend on the highest court for independent rulings. Game over.
July 27, 2025 at 12:46 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Remember kids, it's okay to kink-shame someone for their #chiropractic #porn fetish... when it's #Oklahoma State #Superintendent of Public Instruction and he's running that porn on a TV in his office *during a meeting* of the Board. #50th in #education

nondoc.com/2025/07/25/b...
Image shows a douchecanoe and boot-licking MAGA loser who has made miserable the lives of thousands of Oklahomans in his non-stop efforts to find new ways to marginalize LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff in our public schools; taken millions in funding from public schools to support religious charter schools; millions more to place a Trump-branded bible in every public classroom in our state and mandated that educators teach from the bible; refused to fund school breakfast and lunch programs and blocked efforts for teachers to earn a living wage; driven our state education ranking straight down to #50; literally banned books from schools and public libraries; and done all of this Christian Nationalist bullshit under the guise that he represents the morality police for our state. Oh, said douchecanoe is standing at a podium at a meeting of the Oklahoma State Board of Public Education.
July 25, 2025 at 10:35 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
I get that not everyone is a fan of #GreatTailedGrackle aka #WalmartGrackle aka "parking lot crows". They can be crop pests, their droppings befoul cars and parking lots, and a lot of folks are literally scared of #tinosaur flocks.

But c'mon. How can you not be entertained by these goobers?
July 25, 2025 at 12:57 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
#sustainability #EarthOverShootDay #MoveTheDate #biodiversity #biocapacity #NaturalResources #climate #GlobalFootprintNetwork
July 24, 2025 at 6:33 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Enjoy this fallen log, and the Eastern Wood-Pewee in the background.

#biodiversity #succession #Carbon #forest #LishaKillPreserve #Niskayuna #NewYork #TheNatureConservancy
July 23, 2025 at 4:13 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
One of my favorite stops along my #BreedingBirdSurvey route in #Woods county, #Oklahoma is at this bridge. The #donkey hanging out beneath it was a new one!
#wildlife #survey #BBS #livestock
July 22, 2025 at 3:30 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
Tempted as I am to never post again after hitting #666...

Here's a #Merlin snippet of bird song I recorded last week at #LishaKillNaturalArea in #Niskayuna, NY. The recording includes sounds from #EasternChipmunk, #RedSquirrel, #BlackCappedChickadee and... star of the show #BrownCreeper!
July 20, 2025 at 5:24 PM
tinosaurs.bsky.social
#Dickcissel is ambassador to the #GreatPlains.

As predicted, it's now mid-late July, and this sound has fallen silent here until next May.

#ornithology
#migration
#BreedingSeason
#grasslands
#biodiversity
#wildlife
#Oklahoma
July 20, 2025 at 4:05 PM