Notices by My camera shoots fascists (mikal@sfba.social)

Protesters quickly surrounded Grandmother Tree, the giant cottonwood with the tree sitter in it. Most were arrested.

Moments later, a small army of Border Patrol agents pushed everyone off of the wall right-of-way and into the camp, which has been constructed on private land. Nevertheless, Border Patrol created a wide perimeter around the tree, cutting through the middle of camp and forcing protesters further back into the field.

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Once the protester was removed from the tree, contractors used a massive excavator to undercut the roots and then quickly pushed the giant tree over. The excavator then smashed the branches off and dragged the massive stump to a debris dump up the wall road to the west. While this was happening, a line of protesters were standing behind the barbed wire fence heckling as the Border Patrol guarded the debris pile.

Border Patrol agents, having taken the tree sitter into custody with them in the basket, begin the process of being lowered down. Zoom in a bit and you can see the protester lying on the floor of the basket.

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Border Patrol agents used an extendable construction crane to lift two agents in a steel basket up to the level of the tree sitter where the sitter was subsequently arrested and pulled into the basket.

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Other protesters continued to block the road as a Border Patrol reinforcements arrived en mass from the east.

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When Border Patrol arrived to evict protesters, this woman continued her sunrise ceremony, blocking Border Patrol in the process and eventually being arrested.

Hey Fedi folks,
I'm at the protest camp at Lochiel, Arizona. For 70 days, protesters have been occupying an ancient cottonwood tree as part of a blockade of border wall construction through this area.

This morning, at dawn, while protesters were conducting a sunrise ceremony in the middle of the wall road, Border Patrol showed up with overwhelming force to evict the protesters and the tree sitter, destroy the tree and blade the entire area flat. 100 agents is a very safe estimate.

These are a few of the photos I shot and edited. I'm going to post them with extremely brief captions and no alt text because I have very limited reception, I'm exhausted and I have a 4-hour drive home. I will try to come back and edit them with more data later.

Approximately 20 people were arrested, 10 taken to jail and 10 received citations and were released on site.

The protesters are even more determined now.

#BorderWall #GrandmotherTree #Protest

Photographers who sell at art fairs (particularly in the U.S. West or Southwest:

I'm looking for recommendations for high-end art fairs, i.e. where people actually spend real money. Suggestions?

#photography #LandscapePhotography

Migrants risk robbery and physical violence at the hands of the cartels who they pay to get them to and then across the border. Then they have to cross the desert. If they survive that ordeal, they now run the risk of being sent to a detention camp indefinitely before being deported.

No one does this lightly. No one gives up their entire life and takes these kinds of risks casually. People who attempt this journey are out of options. No one does this lightly.

All the walls in the world will not stop people seeking to survive in this one life we all get. People have always migrated. Migration is a human right.

Some good news! Got word this afternoon through one of the desert aid groups I work with in southern Arizona that the Peruvian Embassy had contacted two of the Latino-lead SAR groups to look for a 25-year-old woman who had last been heard from on Tuesday. Temperatures in the desert out there are in the 90s, which is thankfully low for this time of the year.

Some searchers mobilized rapidly. As they were in the process of contacting the land owner today for access to do a search — that usually ends up being a remains recovery — they got word that Border Patrol had found her alive!

#Immigration #SearchAndRescue #Immigrants #Migration

Today's #LizardReport is a little different because I am on a road trip. Camped out at Kelso Dunes and spent the morning herping in Mojave National Preserve.

7 species of lizard, 4 of them "life lizards"! Here's the first, Phrynosoma platyrhinos, a horned lizard. Look at that camo! They're sooo cute!

(It's intermission at a live theater performance, so I'll post more later or tomorrow in this thread.)

#lizard #herps #MojaveDesert

Another "life lizard" from my day #herping near Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve. Long nosed leopard lizard. It sat there letting me photograph it for a while, then got bored and disappeared into a hole.

#LizardReport #lizard #herps

I also saw a tiger whiptail, zebra tailed lizard and lots of desert iguanas. I don't feel bad about not getting good photos of any of these, because there are tame individuals of these species in my yard in Arizona 😆

This is the first time I've ever seen zebra-tails or desert iguanas outside of town, where I guess they must be a little more used to people. These ones would bolt full sprint 50 to 100 feet away from me. The ones in town are highly skittish, but you can generally get a little bit closer to them.

If you want to see pictures of these species, just look back at the #s in my profile.

#LizardReport #Lizard #herps

I have some new neighbors across the street, from the Pacific Northwest. We've chatted a few times and yesterday I gave them a whole bunch of cuttings off of my cactus here to help them landscape their yard. I was talking about all the lizards and snakes that live here and how I had to catch and relocate a rattlesnake from under the crawlspace in my house. I suggested to them that they look into rattlesnake aversion training for their dog.

I also said that if they found a rattlesnake in the yard, I'd be happy to come get it and relocate it. Jinx, I guess, because she walked over this evening and said that there was rattler in their yard. A western diamondback, like the one that was under my house. Absolutely beautiful snake with 14 rattles! It's much bigger than it looks like curled up in the photos in the bucket.

Alt text in first pic has info about distinguishing western diamondbacks from Mojave rattlesnakes.

#Rattlesnake #HerpReport #Herpetology #LifeInTheSonoranDesert #Snake

Today's #LizardReport

Here's Bill showing off his push-ups. Such a big strong boy!

#Lizard #BillTheLizard #HerpReport

The little tiger whiptail showed up again today out by the back door. I'm constantly amazed that this lizard lets me pick it up as long as I feed it a little bit. Whiptails in the wild are crazy skittish and it's hard to get within 10 feet of one.

I always think they look like the dachshunds of the lizard world. Compared to Bill and the other spiny lizards (Sceloporus magister), this little guy has a very small, delicate mouth and eats in a way that is almost dainty. I find it utterly adorable.

#LizardReport #HerpReport #Lizard

Lesser long-nosed bats at the bird feeder. Shot with DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro camera in ultra-slo-mo mode, which involves a lot of interpolation. The first and last 1.5 seconds are regular 240 fps slo-mo.

They're super fun to watch!
Tonight I'm going to reposition the camera to the side more, to get a better view into the "flower" on the right, plus add some fill light on the left.

#bats #WildlifePhotography

*squeeeeeeee!!!*
New iguana! The smaller one in the background. The one in the front is Donna.

I'm out of mealworms, so I went to the fridge and got some greens. Donna was about 20 feet away and took a couple steps toward me when I whistled, but stopped. The little one, on the other hand, kept coming right up to me and eventually took some of the green leaves out of my hands. Very unexpected! It makes me wonder if maybe the fact that Donna was being so chill led the little one to feel safe enough to approach. Or maybe it was just so hungry it didn't care.

I also observed something I've never seen other lizards to: on several occasions, the little one lightly licked the tip of Donna's tail. I'm presuming this is some sort of courtship behavior. I'm thinking it may turn out that Donna is actually Don.

#LizardReport #Lizard #iguana #Herps

By the way, the first part of the desert iguana's scientific name, Dipsosaurus dorsalis, means "thirsty lizard."

OMG The lizard antics are so adorable.

I ran out of mealworms yesterday, but I told everybody — my lizard frens — that a giant box of them was arriving today.

Last fall, Bill used to regularly come strolling into the house looking to be fed if I were sitting at the kitchen table instead of on the front porch. But he hasn't done that at all since coming out of hibernation a couple weeks ago. But today, minutes after the FedEx person dropped the box of mealworms on the porch, he ran up there, almost like he knew what was inside 😆

Bill is a smart lizard, but I don't think he can read or understand me when I speak English.

#LizardReport #Lizard #BillTheLizard #herps