@faerye@pie.gd
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faerye

@faerye@pie.gd

Nebula-nominated speculative fiction writer.
Eclectic reader, piemaker, enthusiast of dinosaurs both extinct (🦖) and extant (:sapsucker:).
Plays and runs TTRPGs with and without dice.
Co-protagonist of https://pie.gd/@yaypie.
Befriend your local ecosystem!

Pronoun: she
Languages: en-5, fr-3+, cym-2, lat-2, it-1
Location: Atfalati Land, #pdx, #Oregon, USA

Header: me at age 5 with a half-life-sized papier-mâché stegosaur I helped make, looking resolute.

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faerye, to oregon
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Today I checked out a heron rookery nearby! My conservative count (already possibly incremented by my photos) was 15 herons, probably all fledglings — NO verified responsible adults.

I mean, would you not trust these faces to take care of themselves?

faerye, to random
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I have made upwards of 160 pies in my life, but the criterion that a particular custard pie filling is done when it DOES “wobble” but does NOT “move in waves” still gives me absolute hives. Standing there letting all the heat out nudging the pie pan over and over playing ‘wobble or wave’ until my bangs stick straight up from the hot air. 🥵

faerye, to random
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I’m sitting at home awaiting an appliance repair person, and my mom is peppering me with all caps texts about her bird sightings. 🥺

faerye, to random
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N95 masks are good for so much stuff! I’m at my friends’ outdoor party giving pets and scritches to their beautiful huskies, with no allergy concerns! 🥰

faerye, to Birding
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Still processing photos, but got some decent shots of my first non-fleeting Bullock’s Orioles! She was particularly keen on getting her portrait taken and sat for quite some time. 🧡🖤


A male oriole in the crook of another lichen-covered oak branch. His gold is more the deep juicy orange of a ripe mango, and he sports a black cap connected to his eyestripe, and a splash of white accenting his black wing. Despite the bold color scheme, he is shyer of my camera and is only visible from midwing up. His bill is also in very sharp profile.

faerye, to Birding
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I was on my way to do some with a friend in a wildlife area on the Columbia River today. Almost the instant I drove onto the island, I went under a kestrel on a wire, and an osprey paced my car for a long time.

I had to drive! I couldn’t watch them! But it felt like a magical place, and I murmured “I’m so grateful to be among you!” to the birds to relieve my feelings as I diligently kept my eyes on the road! 🥹

faerye, to random
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Bumper sticker idea:
I’m already trying not to catch the NEXT virus!

#MaskUp

faerye, to random
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I washed my bird feeder last night. When I put it back up and was filling it, I felt a crow fly over. I always put a few seeds on the fencerail next to the feeder when I’m done and it was so pleasing to see the crow watching me from my roof as I turned away; and see em land on my fence to pick among the seeds as soon as I was far enough away. It’s good to feel appreciated!

faerye, to Birding
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I hear it is #Wrensday, so here are some house wrens from last Friday! They were singing up a storm all along the margins of the controlled burn area and lazy braided creek we were visiting in #CentralOR.

#birding #BirdPhotography #Oregon

A house wren grasping a slender branch on a dead tree and looking over its shoulder, perhaps checking who has been listening to its songs. It’s quiet right now, shadow on its face making its eye look very dark and thoughtful. We can see the subtle micro-striping very well on its downturned folded tail.
This is the obligatory ‘singing its heart out’ wren picture! Even though a branch is in the way, I wanted to get one of the little dears in full cry: their slender long curved beak open wider, and the throat full of trills. This one has its tail slightly fanned as if in effort as it sings into the cloudless high-desert sky!

faerye, to Birding
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Today I have seen a pair of downy woodpeckers, and the female working on her nest hole one tree over from a red-naped sapsucker DIY gent!

Well, maybe not a gent despite his landlordly behavior toward nuthatches. Would a gentleman have to do with his mate where I could see?! 😱 :sapsucker: :sapsucker:

#woodpecker #birding #CentralOR

faerye, to Birding
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Down at the Deschutes River today in Central Oregon, I saw no Canada geese until this big placid bend in the river, where we saw about 7, all adults.

Then as we’re standing there hoping the resident trumpeter swan will come back out from the trees on the opposite bank, this couple of adult geese swim out of nowhere with EVERY BABY GOOSE.

I swear somehow all the other geese must have landed this one couple with babysitting because they can’t possibly have TWENTY-TWO GOSLINGS!

faerye, to Birding
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Me: OMG a tiny sandpiper! Which kind is it? I’ve forgotten what little I knew about sandpipers last season. What sandpiper? It is SO SMALL, it’s just the smallest possible—

Me, feeling smart: looks up Least Sandpiper 🧐

faerye,
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Here is the lil’ beggar. I feel photos do not do justice to how tiny this chap is, however. Perfectly proportioned model of a shorebird, foraging about very close to me! (I am ashamed to say I didn’t notice the plastic debris in the background while I was there: looks like it comes from nearby construction, and I’ll bring a trash bag next time I go.)

(Least sandpiper, Beaverton, Oregon)

The sandpiper standing tall, displaying its very ruptive plumage, perfect for breaking up its profile as it walks about on land. It has a very long beak with nostrils far from the slightly spade-shaped tip, and an almost thoughtful face with a large eye in densely striped feathers. The patterns of the feathers get larger as they progress down the back, so on the folded wings one can see a pattern of bars and spots on each feather, a bit like a butterfly’s wing. Its belly is white with silken feathers, and its long yellow feet end in spreading claws to negotiate mud.
The sandpiper high-stepping through bright green weeds on land. One foot is fully lifted so we can see the length of its bundled toes. Its beak is wet from explorations in the shallows, and its almond-shaped eye is very dark and deep.

faerye, to Birding
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I’ve been sorting photos from a couple weeks ago, and I have a terrible case of Barn Swallow Cute Aggression! 😬 Just behold! Behold their tiny faces!

A barn swallow perched high on a dead branch, wide mouth open to call. It wears an iridescent indigo coat of feathers and folded wings, with a deep yam-colored swath of contrasting orange down its front. Its mouth is surprisingly large for such a small bird and small head. Bird small! Spring feelings HUGE!
Two barn swallows on a branch: the affronted little gentlebird from earlier looking askance at another loud singer beside it. They both have the same glossy heads, the same toasted-crême brûlée breast feathers and highly sculptured brow shapes. Beautiful high-contrast little birds in wild color against a gray world.

faerye,
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Oh, how did I forget to include this one?!

No thoughts! Just floof!

futurebird, to random
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Trump is considering a rally in my neighborhood, the South Bronx.

I think he still thinks it's bombed out here with the buildings falling down?

Look at the photo the Post used to represent the south bronx LOL. It's the TRAIN YARD they wanted to show something dilapidated so badly. LAMO. Poor things.

I don't think he'll come. A beautiful working class hood full of black and brown people nah.

The Bronx is full wonderful people who don't like you at all.

faerye,
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@futurebird I have a family member who went East to teach math in the Bronx “for a few years” and never came back! 😱

(Happily married math teacher with two kids and a Bronx accent)

faerye, to random
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It’s pouring today, so I hadn’t yet refilled my bird feeder. But when I peek at the feeder, a junco lands on the fence rail next to it and shoots me the LOOK. So I lug out the seed pail.

The junco is still there and a black-capped chickadee is right next to him. Another chickadee flies up and lands on the ~empty feeder: a chestnut-backed. In mounting shame I look along the fence and there’s a song sparrow. “They’re ganging up on me!” I think, and a lesser goldfinch lands pointedly in a bush. 😩

futurebird, to random
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I’m very fond of stories in a universe where some advanced, but long vanished, race of enigmatic aliens has left behind strange artifacts: like puzzle boxes or dungeons for our heroes to explore and nearly get killed in. If not aliens let it be a lost human civilization.

I also like to think about those ancient people who built the ‘Temple of Doom’— for all of those traps to work so well after thousands of years they must have been very clever. What was it like to set them up?

faerye,
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@futurebird Leetle bit different but T. Kingfisher has one book in her romantic fantasy series, Paladin’s Hope, that is about a very gnarly deadly dungeon that does in fact turn out to have a reason other than “kill people”, and that was pretty cool. I love when people justify weird fantasy tropes with world building!

faerye, to random
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Folding away a quilt to store through the warm months, as carefully as a very earnest Girl Scout folding the flag just so.

(Quilt photo tax! It is a Russian Rubix made by my mother out of gold-accented Hoffman fabrics. This one is machine-pieced and she hired a friend to machine-quilt it.)

faerye, to random
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Bewick’s Wren! At the neighbor’s fence rail

#BirdCallOut

faerye, to random
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“…a machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own.” —Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

I love how the seeming spareness and simplicity of Le Guin’s language seems almost bare at the beginning of each book, but by the end has worked up this calm, thunderous authority. A great mass of import, casting through itself and of itself sudden shafts of an awesome and piercing light.

faerye, to movies
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Me muttering when I see Harry Dean Stanton or Yaphet Kotto in some random movie: “He deserved full shares!”

faerye, to MagicTheGathering
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Magic: the Gathering Arena, their digital offering, emits a sound effect whenever one plays a Bird-type creature card. Inevitably, that sound is a red-tailed hawk scream. 🙄

This is particularly criminal for this beautiful, legendary, horrible goose! Let Mother honk, game! Let Mother HONK!

faerye, to Birding
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It’s Warbler Time! Time to yell “tink tink tink” and catch insects on the wing while wearing our fanciest feathers!

(“Audubon’s” Yellow-Rumped Warbler in the rain last week, Oregon, USA)

faerye, to aotearoa
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This is only ONE of the “lost insect species spotted” stories from in March. (In one month!) It is a very cool one, however!

https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/350225711/mysterious-moth-unseen-65-years-accidentally-rediscovered-tourist

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