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buzzhoffman.bsky.social
Brian Hoffman
@buzzhoffman.bsky.social
320 followers 650 following 120 posts
College professor and archaeologist
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Reposted by Brian Hoffman
streets.mn
Thanks for sharing Bill!
January 2, 2026 at 1:52 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
Today’s #BirdoftheDay theme is challenging for me. I love #B&W #photography but have always struggled taking good shots. This pair of #trumpeterswans on an icy lake seems a safe choice. The reflected swan face is my favorite element. #birds
A pair of swans rest on the edge of an open lead on an otherwise ice and snow covered lake. The scene is all white, black, and grey. The snow and swan feathers are white. The open water and swan feet/beaks are the major black elements. The ice adds shades of grey. One swan is sitting on the ice with its long neck curled so that its head is upside down as it preens its wing feathers. The other swan is standing immediately next to its mate. Its head is curled downward as if to offer an affectionate nudge.
January 1, 2026 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
wiscobirder.bsky.social
Who wants to help me find a Brown Creeper? You Ready? Let’s GO!!! #WiscoBirder 📷👐🏾🫶🏾🪶
December 23, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
climateconnections.bsky.social
Scientists call this “continental drying”:
A slow-motion water crisis is unfolding around the world » Yale Climate Connections
Many land areas are drying out as glaciers melt, soils lose moisture, and groundwater levels fall.
yaleclimateconnections.org
December 23, 2025 at 2:05 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
A pair of #HoodedMergansers provide nice #SideProfiles for today’s #BirdoftheDay.

#birds #naturephotograpy #minnesota #birddisplay
A male and female Hooded Merganser are swimming side by side but in opposite directions. The female has just surfaced from a dive and has water droplets sliding off her head and back. The male is displaying with its white and black hood standing upright. The male’s yellow eye and auburn body add a bit of color in an otherwise brown and grey early spring scene.
December 23, 2025 at 1:56 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
For today’s #AboutTheKids #BirdOfTheDay theme l chose this #HairyWoodpecker feeding a chick in our backyard maple tree. Sadly the tree is dying but at least we can enjoy its evolving bird habitat for a few years.

#birds #wildlifephotography #nature
A close up photo of a male Hairy Woodpecker feeding its chick. The adult is clinging to the rough tree bark with its curved claws and leaning in towards the chick. The chick’s head is protruding from the nest hole. The chick’s beak is grasping the adult’s beak as it receives the food.
December 21, 2025 at 5:08 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
A beautiful #PaintedStork for today’s #BirdOfTheDay theme of #LongLegsAndNeck. I got this flyby shot while up in an observation tower at the #PrekToal bird sanctuary on the edge of Cambodia’s #TonléSap Lake.

#birds #naturephotography #birding #wildlife #cambodia
A stork flying over a dense jungle. The sky is hazy blue. The stork has a white body, long yellow beak, pink face, and metallic blue wings. The stork is photographed in profile with its slightly down curved bill, wide spread wings, and dangling legs.
December 19, 2025 at 2:38 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
Great Egret in flight at the #PrekToal bird sanctuary on the edge of Cambodia’s #TonléSap Lake. A fantastic place for birding & ecotourism. For local Khmer, the lake is a critical fishing ground providing 60% of the country’s freshwater fish

#birdoftheday #heronsandegrets #birds #naturephotography
A brilliant white egret with long, trailing legs and stout yellow bill flies across water. Green, leafy water plants are in the background.
December 14, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
robgmacfarlane.bsky.social
The revival of the Klamath River & its watershed over the past 14 months—after the completion of the biggest dam-removal project in US history—is one the most hopeful stories I know in our hope-stripped age.
Magnificent @bengoldfarb.bsky.social essay on it here.
emergencemagazine.org/essay/a-rive...
A River Reborn – Ben Goldfarb
Journalist Ben Goldfarb and photographer Kiliii Yüyan trace the monumental effort to restitch relationships between land, salmon, and humans on the Klamath River, after four of its most obstructive da...
emergencemagazine.org
December 14, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social
The Oxenham Arms pub in South Zeal, Devon, boasts the unusual distinction of having been constructed by 12th Century monks around a prehistoric standing stone.

If you’re lucky and visit at the right time of day, as I did today, you might also see it being recharged with sacred energy by the sun.
A 5,000 year-old standing stone replenishes itself with the moorland winter sun today, in a the dining room of a pub where I found out, to my disappointment, non-cash payments of under £10 are not permitted
December 13, 2025 at 3:56 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
The Redpoll is one of my favorite #finches. Spotted this beauty in #kingsalmon #alaska this summer. #birdoftheday #birds #nature #wildlife #photography
A Redpoll clinging to an Alder branch with green leaves and brown stem. This small finch has a red throat, breast, and cap.
December 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
andy6day.bsky.social
#BirdOfTheDay is #CootsandMoorhens A pair of Moorhen's getting along just fine (as usual)

#birds #photography #EastCoastKin #naturephotography #ukbirding #wildlifephotography #naturetherapy #birdphotography
December 11, 2025 at 4:30 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
For today’s #BirdoftheDay, I’m going with the alternate theme of #hidden. I never would have seen this #GreatHornedOwl if it wasn’t for the noisy crows harassing it. #Minnesota #birds #naturephotography #owl
A Great Horned Owl is mostly obscured by green leafy branches. All that is visible is the owl’s piercing eyes and one tuft of feathers or horn.
December 12, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
anylength66.bsky.social
"Cause I can think of a few cows who have it comin'. They know what they did." 🤣🤣🤣
@brittlestar.com
youtube.com/shorts/0Kjt0...
This May Offend Some People... But It Needs To Be Said
YouTube video by brittlestar
youtube.com
December 8, 2025 at 8:37 AM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
For today’s #birdoftheday theme of #movement I chose this #heron photographed as it is shaking a leech before swallowing it down. I was lucky to watch this bird catch several leeches. Each one received a violent shake before it was eaten. #birds #wildlife #nature #photography #Minnesota
A Green Heron is perched on the edge of a pond covered by a thick layer of green duckweed. The heron’s head is rotated completely upside down. A leech is dangling from the tip of the heron’s open beak. The camera caught the blur of movement from the heron shaking its prey.
December 6, 2025 at 1:56 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
The #BirdofTheDay theme is #Songbirds so I chose this Eastern #Meadowlark singing away while perched on a mullein stalk in eastern #Minnesota. #birds #naturephotography
This Eastern Meadowlark has a wide open beak as it sings. Its striking yellow breast with black patch is towards the camera. The head is turned sideways showing off the prominent beak. The birds feet are grasping a dried mullein stalk. The background is a diffuse green of out of focus grassland and distant woods.
December 4, 2025 at 2:11 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
A juvenile American Robin eating cedar tree berries. One of a dozen robins that had descended on this tree in Como Park last September. #BirdOfTheDay #BerriesandBeaks #Minnesota #birds #birdphotography #wildlifephotography
A robin with splotchy feathers as it molts into adult plumage is eating waxy blue cedar berries while perched on a thin tree branch. The robin holds one berry in its beak with more berries still on the branch.
November 30, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
danmarstp.marshallwords.com
Great Big Bollards: A Manifesto
What the world needs now is bollards. Great Big Bollards. Everywhere.
streets.mn
November 29, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
racketmn.com
It’s cliché to call the Boundary Waters a refuge, but it certainly was mine when I was a kid.
An Elegy for My Boundary Waters - Racket
It’s cliché to call the Boundary Waters a refuge, but it certainly was mine when I was a kid.
racketmn.com
November 23, 2025 at 9:00 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
This Red-eyed Vireo was loudly chirping away in the forest but otherwise remained hidden from me. The only photo I could get was this #headshot through the leaves. Wish the branch was gone but love the eye. #birdoftheday #birds #naturephotograpy #minnesota
Song bird is peering at the camera through the leaves. The bird’s head and red eye are visible in sharp focus. The rest of the scene is blurred.
November 27, 2025 at 3:21 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
American White Pelicans waking up #OnTheEdge in a southwestern #Minnesota pond. My contribution to today’s #BirdOfTheDay #birds #naturephotography
A compacted pod of a dozen American White Pelicans on a grey, foggy mourning. They were photographed as they were beginning to stir, some with open beaks as they shook their heads. They have the horn or flat plate on top of their orange beaks that marks breeding season.
November 26, 2025 at 2:14 PM
buzzhoffman.bsky.social
My contributions to #birdoftheday and #birdonawire are a Brewer’s Blackbird and a Field Sparrow. Both seen at #KeystonewoodsWMA. It was a beautiful early summer day with lots of bugs for the #birds. I likewise had over 70 wood ticks by the end. #worthit.
A male Brewer’s Blackbird with greenish sheen to its body, purple sheen on its head, and bright yellow eyes hangs on a grey wire fence while grasping squirming insects in its beak. A brown and tan Field Sparrow flaps its wings as it balances on a barbed wire fence. In its beak it holds a black bug with long legs.
November 22, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
isabellemarie.bsky.social
A centuries-old grid of holes in the Andes may have been a ‘spreadsheet’ for accounting and exchange.
theconversation.com/a-centuries-...
A centuries-old grid of holes in the Andes may have been a ‘spreadsheet’ for accounting and exchange
An ancient band of thousands of precisely aligned small pits stretching 1.5 kilometres across the Pisco Valley in Peru has baffled experts for almost a century.
theconversation.com
November 16, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
heatherrandell.bsky.social
I moved to Minnesota in June 2023 during a day when the air smelled like a campfire. When I’ve asked longtime Minnesotans about the increasingly severe smoke during our summers, they all say it was never a problem until a few years ago. And wow, this graph has got the receipts.
Graph showing the number of air quality alerts in MN from 2010 to 2025. Very poor air quality did not exist until 2021. Source: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency • Jake Steinberg, The Minnesota Star Tribune
November 14, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
streets.mn
"The businesses north of University didn’t wait for permission. They saw opportunities in underutilized buildings and took them. They built for their neighbors rather than theoretical suburban customers."

streets.mn/2025/11/12/n...
North of University: The Midway’s Accidental Success Story
North of University represents everything the south side is not — adaptive, tight-knit, walkable — despite being Midway’s less organized, less polished side.
streets.mn
November 13, 2025 at 3:43 AM