Bird of the Day — Merlin, Kansas, yesterday

Nature, red in beak and claw

Breakfast

A grey #heron feeding on a #vole

#Leaf-dwelling #fungi enhance black #poplar chemical defenses and mediate multi-trophic #insect interactions.

#Cladosporium #predation #herbivore #alkaloids #stachydrine #metabolomics #microbiome

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-leaf-fungi-black-poplar-chemical.html

Une fleur ? Non, un redoutable prédateur ! La mante fleur épineuse allie camouflage et stratégie de chasse pour surprendre ses proies.

Découvrez ce chef-d'œuvre de la nature https://www.2tout2rien.fr/la-mante-fleur-epineuse/

The #USA's racist #history says this 1933 scene in #Michigan is bad

But what's happening is good

A #bank has foreclosed on a #farmer and put their #farm up for #auction. #Neighbors have come to bid penny amounts to win the farm and return it

It was called a #pennyAuction

The nooses are a threat to high bidders. Others roam the crowd with axe handles

#CollectiveAction, #Community, #MutualAid

Against #financial #predation, #corporate #greed

We lost this as a country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_auction_(foreclosure)

I just saw a song thrush vigorously beat a garden snail out of its shell on our driveway.

It reminded me of that scene from The Avengers with Loki and the Hulk.

"I have an army."

"We have a thush!"

https://flic.kr/p/2qqsEGj
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/249455030

Poverty Pimps
How 'Helping The Homeless' Became A Billion Dollar Industry
#Unhoused #Homeless #Capitalism #LaissezFaire #Predation #Classism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSX6J4WkGCk

polykill

Biologists study trade-offs of microscopic predators https://phys.org/news/2024-05-biologists-offs-microscopic-predators.html

Costs of being a diet generalist for the #protist predator #Dictyostelium discoideum https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2313203121

"The #amoebae prey on a very diverse group of #bacteria. But when they switch from one bacteria to another, there's a physiological cost."

Insects are here, and so are some of the warblers. Bring on Spring!

A local Great Horned Owl nest, with evidence that the occupant has been eating crow...

Alpine #ibex becoming more nocturnal as temperatures rise
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-alpine-ibex-nocturnal-temperatures.html

Seeking temporal refugia to heat stress: increasing nocturnal activity despite predation risk https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.1587

"the move to a more nocturnal lifestyle is not a viable behavioral change for the #AlpineIbex over time due to #wolf #predation. As #ClimateChange progresses, the ibex are likely to become increasingly nocturnal, putting their survival at great risk."