Lazy Spring Days #Ruminants #DailyPictureTheme

You can pick up a baby bird and put it back in the nest. The parents won't smell your hands and abandon it. Songbirds barely smell anything, and that old "the mother will reject it" line is one of the most worst wildlife myths going. If you find a naked or barely feathered chick on the ground, it fell early and needs to go back. Find the nest, set it back in, walk away. The parents will come back. Call a licensed wildlife rehabber if you can't find the nest, the bird's bleeding or cold, or a cat got it. Don't feed it yourself. Find one through your state wildlife agency. If it's fully feathered and hopping around, that's a fledgling, and it's supposed to be there. Mom and dad are watching from a branch and feeding it on a schedule. You can leave it be.

"The older I get, the more I understand why people disappear into gardening, baking, reading, and long walks. Not because life got boring. Because peace became valuable.” ~Unknown

A bird hits your window, drops, and lies there limp. Before you assume the worst: a lot of the time, it's not dead, it's just stunned. What actually finishes it off is the cat that finds it lying there helpless. So buy it time. Set a colander over it, upside down, right where it landed. The holes let it breathe and see out, and nothing can reach it while it comes around. Two things to think about though: Keep it in the shade, never the sun, because a metal colander in direct light turns into an oven and you'll cook the bird you're trying to save. And don't walk off and forget it. Lift the colander every fifteen minutes, and the second it's alert, let it go. Don't feed it, don't try to give it water, and don't handle it more than you have to. If it's still down after a couple of hours, or a wing is hanging wrong, it's hurt worse than time can fix. Call a wildlife rehabber.

“Dear migrants, before I say any other word to you, I want to bow before your dignity. “You are not numbers or case files. “You are people — with a family and a home left behind, with dreams that no one has the right to scorn.” — Pope Leo XIV

Every summer, well-meaning people hang out balls of dryer lint, yarn, and pet fur for the birds. Most of it does more harm than good. Dryer lint feels perfect, but it isn't. It crumbles the first time it rains and leaves holes in the nest, and it carries detergent residue and microplastics. Yarn, string, and long hair can be worse: they wrap around a nestling's leg or wing as it grows and slowly cut off circulation, and wildlife rehabbers see the results every year. Pet fur seems like the safe, natural choice, and it's the one I'd skip hardest. A 2025 UK study found that 100% of the animal fur lining the nests of two common songbirds contained insecticides from flea and tick treatments, and the higher the dose, the worse the chicks did. The soft lining was poisoning the brood. Here's the good news: The best nesting material is a slightly messy yard, and it's free. Leave the twigs, dead leaves, and dried grass where they fall. Let plants stand so the seed fluff and stems are there for the taking. Leave a small patch of bare mud for the robins. Birds were building nests for millions of years before the craft-supply aisle existed. Give them a wild corner and get out of the way.

BREAKING: Scott Pelley Just Made A Pretty Stunning Allegation. According to Pelley, CBS leadership wanted a story about the killing of ICE protester Renée Good changed to better match Trump's version of events. Pelley says he was told management wanted protesters portrayed as more violent and wanted Good described as driving toward the officer who shot her. He says the video evidence showed otherwise. Then came the admission. "There was a thumb on the scale for the president's version of events." A veteran journalist with 37 years at CBS is alleging political pressure was applied to change the facts of a story. That's a remarkable accusation.

It is hard to believe it is 34 years since our friend was killed on duty. Garda Séan (John) Linehan Always remembered. 🌷 @gardainfo @GardaTraffic #LestWeForget🌹

When memories are numbers. Mum would have been 97 today Their wedding anniversary 74 years today. Our friend Séan died 34 years ago today. Thinking of you all, love & affection does not die, it lives on in our heart & soul. 🙏🏼🌷🥰. 🌷

"Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still" Dorothea Lange (1885-1965) US documentary photograper who brought the reality of poverty during the Great Depression to the world #womensart #PhotographerWeek 📷

Love a duck?🦆 or a Swan 🦢 please don’t ❌feed them bread. ❌ You’re killing them with kindness. Chop up some grapes, corn, defrosted peas, just some of the ‘Good’ food you can give them instead. 🔽

Good god this is a crazy interview. Listen as Scott Pelley describes how Bari Weiss wanted journalists at CBS to cover the killing of Renee Good in Minnesota. This is why we can’t have oligarchs running our news outlets, this is absolutely devastating.

LOVE IT! Whomever created this deserves an Oscar! Cheer up your Monday morning, Cut loose, Footloose ….

🚨 HEARTBREAKING: Scott Pelley Sounded Like A Man Attending A Funeral. Not for a person. For a profession. 🔥 That’s why his defense of journalism hit so hard. Scott Pelley confirmed on the record that CBS management ordered him to “inject falsehoods” into 60 Minutes coverage. He named Bari Weiss directly. He said she was brought in to neutralize independent journalism inside the network. He told 60 Minutes’ new leadership she was “murdering the show.” Pelley spent 24 years at CBS News. He just put his name on the record against the institution that built his career. The Paramount-Skydance merger closed. The new ownership installed Weiss. Pelley is the most senior on-air voice at CBS News describing what’s happening inside. This is what institutional capture sounds like from inside the institution.

‼️Missing‼️ Two young teenage girls 13 & 14 from Newbridge, Kildare. Believed to be in Wexford. Please share. ‼️🙏🏼

Lovely senior Irish tweeter David O'Brien, who you may know better as @thepainterflynn and now tweets from @oddweirdadvice is currently in hospital in Nenagh. The hospital will release him if he can find suitable accommodation. David previously had a house which he sold some years ago when he moved to live with his brother. His brother is sadly now deceased and David's subsequent accommodation is no longer available to him. David does not want to go into a nursing home if he can help it. Although disappointingly no alternative accommodation has been sourced for him by the State, he is hoping it may nonetheless turn up through the goodwill of Irish twitter (also, he says things usually do turn up in the end). It would be great if he were to be proven right! If anyone is interested in offering David accommodation, please contact him at @oddweirdadvice. He is cut off from his enormous number of old followers at @thepainterflynn because of Twitter issues with that account.

First Dahlia of the summer… 😀 Dahlia’s 1 - Slugs 0💪.

Gardaí are seeking the public’s assistance in tracing the whereabouts of Angel Ndlovu (16) who was reported missing from Portrane, Co. Dublin since Thursday 4th June 2026. Angel is described as being approximately 5 foot 2 inches in height, with black hair and brown eyes. Gardaí and Angel’s family are concerned for her well-being. Anyone with information on Angel’s whereabouts is asked to contact Ballymun Garda Station on (01) 666 4400, the Garda confidential line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station.

The bird singing outside your window before sunrise hasn't eaten in 8-10 hours. The dawn chorus is a seriously costly display to a bird. Most songbirds wake up at their daily energy low point and the first thing they do is broadcast their location, fitness, and territory ownership to every other bird, predator, and rival within earshot. Why do it at the worst possible time? Because it's an honest signal. A male that can afford to sing first, loudest, and longest before he has eaten is telling every female in the neighborhood that he is well-fed, healthy, and has access to a good territory. You can't fake that. Research has consistently found that males who lead the dawn chorus hold higher-quality territories and attract mates faster. Birds in noisy human environments sing earlier and harder to compensate, at real metabolic cost. The half-hour of birdsong outside your window before sunrise is the most energetically expensive 30 minutes of that bird's day. It's not background. It's a fitness audition.