Bob Nieman

@bnieman.bsky.social

912 Followers 418 Following

Birder, County Lister, eBird Reviewer, iNat enthusiast, loved ScienceTwitter (all disciplines) and looking forward to the BlueSky version. Work life: hazardous materials, hazardous waste, radioactive waste and the transportation thereof.

A gray and white opossum climbing a pole to get at a yellow and black seed feeder
A female plumaged sea-going diving duck called a King Eider. The bird is brown with a larger than usual black bill. They are usually found off the coasts, fairly far north and rarely in the Great Lakes. Not expected in Kansas! I’ve never been someplace where I could expect to see one, so it is a Life Bird!
A series of cell phone photographs taken the night of November 11th, 2025 showing a red sky, some with a green horizon, all from the aurora borealis, caused by particles shot out from the sun that hit our atmosphere and ionize gases. These photos are from central Missouri, which is pretty far south, so red is the predominant color, seen only in strong storms.
Another empty green wire cage that formerly hell a block of suet. The door is hanging down from being opened. Raccoons are awfully smart
A green wire mesh cage bolted into a tree. The cage is closed, yet the former contents, a block of suet, is gone. It’s a mystery!
Close up photo of the head of a Burrowing Owl, a small owl that lives in holes in the ground, mostly found in the western half of the United States. The bird is brown with white spots and large yellow eyes
A LeConte’s Sparrow on dry weeds in a Missouri prairie. More colorful than many sparrows, the face is mostly amber. there are brown streaks across the chest and along the flanks. I “identified” one in Minnesota over 40 years ago, but I’m not certain I was correct (I used the Chandler Robbins field guide at the time). It might as well be a “Life Bird” (one I’ve never seen before), and I bought a pie to celebrate.
A banana cream pie that I bought to celebrate seeing a bird for the first time-a Connecticut Warbler. This was a “Life Bird” for me, so I got to eat some “Lifer Pie”
An eBird checklist from 6:16am August 22nd from my porch. 2 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, 1 Long-billed Curlew (rare!), 1 Eastern Wood-Pewee, 1 American Goldfinch, 3 Northern Cardinals. The curlew was heard only and is quite rare in Missouri. The local eBird reviewer has balked at approving heard-only birds *with* recordings, and I didn’t get a recording of the curlew.
A gray and white possum is struggling to stay high enough on a pole to continue feeding at a yellow finch feeder filled with nyger seeds
A small greenish rock in a plastic bag on a piece of paper that reads: “TRINITITE 530 AM 7 16 45” Purchased at a rock shop not far from the Trinity site.
Two versions of the same document. The revised copy changed “Gender” to “Sex”, no doubt an order from above. Sigh.
A pale sun in a gray sky filtered by tons of dust in the air. It wasn’t nearly as windy as the day before, yet the sky wasn’t blue. Spring means wind and blowing dust. As in High Wind Warnings and the last meaningful precipitation was four or five months ago (and that wasn’t really much). Life in the Chihuahuan Desert.
What happens to a math textbook if you leave it in your dusty garage for 25 years. The blue cover is caked with dirt.
A picture of a mountainous ridge in Slaughter Canyon in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. A triangular peak with tall walls running down the sides.
A hole in my kitchen floor from trying to repair our old sewer line once and for all. It’s the second time we have done this plus also replacing sewer pipes in the part of the house with a crawl space. We thought we had already replaced everything under the slab. We were wrong.
Three American Coots swimming in a lake. They aren’t ducks, more like black chickens with white bills and lobed feet. One of the three is almost entirely white due to a deficiency of melanin, the black pigment in feathers.
An American Robin without the usual black pigment in the body. The head, wings, and tail are a creamy white. The chest and belly is a pale orange. It is sitting is a tree with its head turned.
A list of the number of birds I have seen in New Mexico over the last ten years. I have been very consistent, aiming for over 300, which used to be good enough to be in the top ten for the state but now not even the top 20. I bird almost entirely in just 3 counties (only two this year)
A colorful mural on a wall outside of Whites City New Mexico (gateway to Carlsbad Caverns). There are several animals depicted in unnatural colors- a coyote with bats coming out of its mouth as it howls, a giant Roadrunner, a bison, a collared lizard on a prickly pear cactus and a Snowy Owl in flight. 🎶One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn’t belong🎵
A middle-aged guy dressed in festive colors and a Christmas hat standing next to a spotting scope he uses to look at distant birds that he counts for the annual Christmas Bird Counts. He keeps track with his cell phone in his hands using the eBird app. He expects to count 2500 American Coots this morning, among other waterfowl and other kinds of birds.
A gray-scale scene at Brantley Lake in SE New Mexico 12/15/24. There are four geese swimming away from the photographer. Two are large Canada Geese, the right two are much smaller and might be Cackling Geese, which are rare here. Or they might be Lesser Canada Geese, which are not rare. They can be hard to tell apart, and at this distance, impossible. There are five smaller ducks nearby, perhaps Northern Shovellers. Because of the distance and the cloudy morning, the photo looks like a watercolor painting in shades of gray.
Photo of a gull with a black bill facing the camera. I asked the Merlin app to identify it, and it came back with No Matches. There are only a limited number of species to choose from, but the photo doesn’t show some of the important features for identifying gulls.
A bright red dragonfly perched on some grass over a dark background, seen from behind on the right side. The wings are hard to see, but have an orange wash. There are two small yellow spots on the middle section (thorax), only one is visible, that indicate this is a Cardinal Meadowhawk. They are uncommon in New Mexico, but expected. They are more common along the pacific coast.
A small dragonfly called a Three-striped Dasher. The abdomen was largely black with a bright white spot toward the end. The body looked powder blue with three dark stripes running vertically along the side. It looks a little like a couple dragonflies found at Rattlesnake Springs in SE New Mexico, but it was much shorter. I didn’t know what it was so I uploaded it to iNaturalist immediately, and the app identified it. I also uploaded it to Odonata Central. It was the first one seen in New Mexico. These dragonflies are only a recent addition to Texas, typically in the farthest south sections. They are also in south Florida as well as much farther south. We had a few days with pretty strong winds from the SE that had shut down the bird migration, but brought us something else.
A rainbow early one morning at a salt flat in southeastern New Mexico. It is usually a pretty bleak place, but lots of shorebirds during migration if there is water in a county with very little habitat for such things.
A blurry photo of an Osprey, a large dark brown and white bird of prey that eats fish, diving into a small pond in SE New Mexico feet first. The claws are very large and very sharp, which allows them to catch fish with a high success rate.
Three large rock formations (stalagmites) in the Big Room of Carlsbad Caverns. I can’t remember their names, but they are some of the largest. The big one on the left is almost smooth, the other shows all sorts of levels and patterns., horizontal and vertical. The third is almost hidden before the first. It is a great place to visit, especially in the summer because it is always cool underground.