SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social

Evolutionary ecologist & ornithologist, postdoc Ohio State | PhD UIUC, MSc Kansas State | SciComm, birding, and nature photography | certified Lawn Hater, Cowbird Apologist, Stress Physiology Enthusiast, Typo Lover | they/them 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 | skwinnicki.com

Hi new followers, I’m SK!

Do you know that trope where a character is eaten alive by a dark secret and is forced to publicly confess it? That’s how I feel about every cool fact I learn, and until I can get back to teaching again they’re all coming out here, so buckle up!

Thread of fave posts:
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This time last year I'd not yet seen any warblers around my neighborhood

This year I've already seen four species so that makes me think I'm entitled to them every day so I'm getting bummed when none show up on my #TenMinMerlin

soooon

missing my juncos already though
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Made it with 5 minutes to spare babyyyy
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Why do I have to clean so frequently? Got a dog, two cats, and two birds in a century old house suffering from some landlord special, cleaning every day wouldn't be enough
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My family are "if you're not twenty minutes early you're late" people

Perhaps it's my unmedicated ADHD, but I'm a "arrive five minutes late to be thoughtful to the host" person and I'm so grateful my friends are too
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"but SK you know this about him, why weren't you more prepared?"

Look it's the crunch time before finals week. I spent 60 hours in the office since he left late Sunday night, working until midnight six days in a row, still didn't get close to getting my work done. Doing my best
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Dad's visiting two weekends in a row for CBJ games

Last week he was coming on Saturday. Pushed it to Friday evening two days before. Day of came 2 hours early, I was still frantically cleaning.

This week was supposed to come on Sunday, decided two days ago for Saturday, now 6 hours early. Cleaning
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Reposted by SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️
scalzi.com's profile picture
John Scalzi @scalzi.com
1d
I missed this from @phineas.bsky.social when it originally came out but it sure feels relevant at the moment.

Also, you can buy this as a print from the artist here:

www.inprnt.com/gallery/phineas/prompting-with-hitler/
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Reposted by SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️
strangetruther.bsky.social's profile picture
JoJaSciPo @strangetruther.bsky.social
1d
I'm gonna have to turn my Merlin app ON when I go out now - seems to be the cool thing everyone's doing!
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Me: I'm just swamped and behind on deadlines, I cannot commit to any more extra work

Also me: oh no another manuscript peer review request and it looks so cool I can't say no
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This is the tonal quality I most associate with American Crows. I hear it occasionally around the neighborhood, not sure if it's my local birds sometimes switching to the more typical calls, or a visitor passing through

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkd2Nvv8RRo
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Again, not an expert on corvids, but my best guess is that this is just a local dialect developed by some American Crows.

Birds can have inherited (genetic or learned) dialects, but I'm guessing the highly intelligent crows are flexible enough to also just adjust to the local vibe.
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I've spent the last few weeks taking much better quality footage of my weird crows with my camera (versus my phone) but I need to clip them to BlueSky size and try to edit out the extreme urban noise (I live by a railway, a busy city road, an interstate, and an international airport, all at once)
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The calls remind me most of young crow calls, but given by adults now.

Some birders around here call them Fish Crows, but I think the calls are too deep and don't follow the correct cadence for a Fish Crow. Not an expert on corvids though!

They sometimes croak like ravens, but they're crows
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When I first moved to this neighborhood, two of the American Crows here had a very nasal quality to their calls and made a bunch of croaks I most associate with young birds.

Now they all sound like that, just unusual enough that Merlin doesn't try to identify them any bird at all.

#birds
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The cold front has passed and we're back to springtime weather again, so my bird neighbors were nice and chatty this morning for my #TenMinMerlin
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Two nights ago there was more migration movement than I had expected (based on BirdCast)-- not spring migrants arriving as much as winter residents taking off. I went from dozens of juncos to only one, overnight! Although I'm sure there will be more passing through from South of me

#TenMinMerlin
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Reposted by SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️
k15sty.bsky.social's profile picture
Alfie and Mam @k15sty.bsky.social
1d
Inspired by @skwinnicki.bsky.social I sat in my garden in the North East of England for 20 mins and started recording the birds on Merlin. Ignore the Mallard it was a dog barking 🤣
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That's not the NYC one, to be clear. It's one we had on Ohio State's main campus for a day last week

bsky.app/profile/skwinnicki.bsky.social/post/3micygkpynk2e
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I'm a known bogsucker stan, so people have been asking me if I've seen images of the NYC birds and what I thought of the hype

I've been so worried about declining woodcock populations for years now, I'm so delighted when they get the love they deserve

bsky.app/profile/skwinnicki.bsky.social/post/3mieun6kkbs2o
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The people don't want war or tariffs or secret police or a gutted government or cutting aid or rising prices or isolationism or institutionalized hate

they want the ✨peent✨

apnews.com/article/woodcock-bird-new-york-city-bryant-park-3e2e1d5bf88b3cf4ac83689b30a7beea
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I see Axios is offering an AI you can use if you also want to maul the formatting of your news reporting.

The sentence structures are good-- short, to the point, active voice. But the bullet points are abhorrently chaotic
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I can't be the only one who finds it annoying and distracting when it's supposedly helpful.

But I'm also not the target audience for accessible news reporting, as I love nothing more than an extremely detailed deep dive.
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Does anyone actually like Axios' "Smart Brevity" formatting
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There are times that I get frustrated with my disabled body, but every spring I'm just so grateful I don't have seasonal allergies

Pollen count is high
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Shit this is dire, I didn't realize it was getting so bad so fast for the world's largest penguin, jumping categories on their rapid descent to "endangered" status

I guess collapsing breeding colonies would do that

www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/09/mass-drowning-of-chicks-puts-emperor-penguins-at-risk-of-extinction
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Reposted by SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️
thedescenters.bsky.social's profile picture
Mx Maddison Stoff @thedescenters.bsky.social
2d
why not spread benign conspiracies that the universe is kinder than we might expect
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There's a lot of delightful bumper stickers around town, but this one made me actually laugh out loud
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