Mom won the snipe hunt
My mom is visiting from Arizona and we’re doing a lot of birding. And whoa, you guys: WE FOUND SNIPES. Wilson’s snipes, to be precise, because they stopped off at a local pond on their way south for the winter. They were accompanied by some other wading hunters: Greater yellowlegs. So the photo below will get you acquainted with them, but I’m going to share a gallery of Mom’s pics after that so you can say WOW, MOM, THAT’S GREAT STUFF!
1. Canada geese coming in for a landing 2. A greater yellowlegs in flight 3. THREE snipes in flight! One up top near the duck, one down low skimming the water, and one on the right. 4. A greater yellowlegs snags a minnow 5. Greater yellowlegs wading around 6. Three snipes! Two on the left and one on the right about to land. All pics by Mom!
So yeah, Mom and I are headed to Halifax for a few days to see a bit of the coast and do some more birding. Turns out Mom has wanted to visit Nova Scotia ever since she was a kid, so we’re finally taking care of that! If anyone in Halifax has recommendations for stuff to do/see or places to eat, let us know!
At the end of the month, paid subscribers, you’ll see more pics from Mom and me from our trip to Nova Scotia. (You’ll also get a new Young Druid short story, they’re turning out to be great fun.)
Today is kind of a big day for me in another sense: It’s the publication day of A DUBIOUS CLAMOR by Marissa Lingen—a book I’m publishing through Horned Lark Press. It has so much to offer—an enchanted sword, a musical magic system, harpies that aren’t simply monsters, organizing with allies to defeat fascism, cozy vibes, and cake! It’s utterly delightful—I wouldn’t publish it if not!—and I hope you’ll pick it up in print or ebook wherever you like to buy books. You can pick it up wherever you buy books, but the link I’m providing below is to Bookshop.org, which offers both print and ebook, and as a bonus lets you direct a portion of your purchase to an independent bookseller of your choice! (Yeah! Your ebook purchase helps a print bookstore in your community!) So you get your books directly online, but you’re also helping a small business near you! Basically it’s a win-win-win-win (you, the author, the publisher, the bookstore of your choice). I have been providing the same links in my What I’m Reading posts, and for all of y’all who have used them, thank you! Keeping your money in your community instead of sending it to a billionaire who exploits his workers and fired all the book reviewers at the newspaper he bought is resistance!
A Dubious Clamor
Enjoy a world of sorcerous aunts, musical magic, and moody swords in this delightful tale of finding one's balance in an unbalanced world.
Ever since she broke the curse that made her live as a harpy for two years, Jules has worked as a cursebreaker, taking on magical odd jobs for minimal pay and the occasional spot of cake. In a society obsessed with propriety and status, she must tread carefully to maintain her ties to both her aristocratic mother and the wild clamor of harpies with whom she once flew. The delicate balance she has struck is disrupted when her childood friend, Anthony, begs for help with a disgruntled sword. At first, she assumes it will be a job like any other, but the sword soon reveals itself to be an ancient, powerful weapon: the dubious sword forged by the magician Wayland Smith that can literally cut through human certainty. Now, it has awakened to challenge a new law in Parliament that would strip millions of their rights-magical and mundane people alike. The man behind the law, Lord Ventstock, was the very person who once cursed Jules, and she's determined not to let him hurt anyone else.
As her connection to the sword grows, Jules begins to appreciate the double-sided power of doubt: how it can create healthy skepticism or fuel deep anxiety. Certainties can be safe but also dangerous traps. After walking a razor's edge for so long between two worlds, Jules must call upon all her connections and finally merge the two halves of herself if she is going to defeat Lord Ventstock, embracing doubt and having the courage to be undefinable.
So here’s What I’m Reading right now:
Wickhills
In the dangerous magical city of Wickhills, a streetwise secret agent is tasked with protecting a foreign defector from his pursuers... even at the threat of war.
Looking after a defecting scientist should have been Vycol Ferec's easiest mission. But now he's on the run from the intelligence agency he works for, dodging a handler who might have gone rogue and relying on a secret patchwork of illicit resources and dodgy contacts. Turns out his defector might be carrying an apocalypse-level magical weapon — and protecting it requires Ferec and his team to go underground, literally. Down here, the rules are very different... and the tense peace between every city in the world will shatter unless Ferec can drag their darkest secrets into the light.
Some engrossing nonfiction that aligns with my interests:
The Story of Birds
From the renowned paleontologist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a sweeping evolutionary history of birds, from their dinosaur origins to the 10,000+ extraordinary species alive today.
Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishingly diverse array of species that are present nearly everywhere humans call home—and many places we do not. With their flamboyant plumage, joyous dawn serenades, extraordinary aerial feats, they have captivated human imagination for millennia. Undeniably delicate creatures with hollow bones and thin skin protected by downy feathers, how did such a seemingly fragile species break the bounds of Earth and begin to fly, how have they survived millennia, and how does their legacy shape our world?
Hailed as “one of the stars of modern paleontology” (National Geographic), Steve Brusatte now tells the extraordinary story of the dinosaurs' living legacy: birds. He begins by exploring how dinosaurs gradually developed the trademark features of birds one-by-one—feathers, wings, beaks, big brains, keen senses, and warm-blooded metabolisms. He investigates why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the cataclysmic asteroid impact 66 million years ago and chronicles how these survivors rapidly proliferated to produce the diversity of avian species we know today.
Along the way, we meet a variety of remarkable – now extinct – species:
- 10-foot-tall terror birds with beaks that sliced flesh
- Elephant birds that lived on Madagascar and laid eggs the size of footballs
- Pelagornithid seabirds with 20-foot wingspans
- A ferocious Jamaican ibis that used its wings as clubs to attack rivals
Yet, Brusatte also urges us to appreciate the extraordinariness of birds alive today – penguins that literally fly underwater, parrots that can mimic human speech and crows that can make tools and are smarter than most mammals.
A fascinating scientific history that unearths the origins of birds, The Story of Birds establishes the living legacy of this remarkable species.
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