Grigory Heaton

Grigory Heaton

@g-heaton.bsky.social

Physics grad student @ Caltech working on cosmic infrared background research. I mainly post about wildlife/nature photography and birding here | Pasadena, California | All photos are my own! (I will block anyone who uses gen AI images and you should too)

1,683 Followers 282 Following 915 Posts Joined Dec 2023
6 months ago

Ivory-billed Woodpecker evidence:

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6 months ago
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Leaked Meta AI rules show chatbots were allowed to have romantic chats with kids | TechCrunch The standards also allow the bots to make "statements that demean people on the basis of their protected characteristics," such as "black people are dumber than white people."

techcrunch.com/2025/08/14/l...

The corporation formerly known as Facebook is genuinely evil and a blight on civilization. This only scratches the surface of the harm Zuckerberg has done. If I could push a button that wiped all of its "products" from existence, I would do it without hesitation.

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6 months ago
A somewhat worn Bar-tailed Godwit in basic plumage stands on a barnacled rock with water behind along Ballona creek in Los Angeles, California, where it is extremely rare

Very rare Bar-tailed Godwit at the Ballona saltmarsh near the LAX airport! This is the first one in southern california since I started birding, and they typically cross the entire Pacific from Russia to Australia and NZ in one shot. This one instead encountered an Accidentes billboard πŸͺΆ

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7 months ago

Very nice, I got to visit there for the first time in June

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7 months ago
A brown, finely patterned Catalina cactussnail (Xerarionta kelletii) attached to a mottled grey and green coast prickly pear cactus pad with dry summer coastal sage scrub in the background on the Pacific side of Catalina island, California

The islands off of southern California are a hotspot for snail diversity, with 5 endemic species just on Catalina island alone. This Catalina cactussnail - the most common of the 5, widespread on the island - is spending the summer attached to a prickly pear cactus pad πŸ“·

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7 months ago

...technically, there is a small (and possibly extinct) population of this species on the mainland on the Palos Verdes peninsula, but the overwhelming majority are only on the island

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7 months ago
A brown, finely patterned Catalina cactussnail (Xerarionta kelletii) attached to a mottled grey and green coast prickly pear cactus pad with dry summer coastal sage scrub in the background on the Pacific side of Catalina island, California

The islands off of southern California are a hotspot for snail diversity, with 5 endemic species just on Catalina island alone. This Catalina cactussnail - the most common of the 5, widespread on the island - is spending the summer attached to a prickly pear cactus pad πŸ“·

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7 months ago
The Milky Way rises above a dark California landscape on the northern end of Catalina island near Parson's Landing

First Milky Way photo of the season! Northern tip of Catalina Island, offshore from Los Angeles πŸ“·πŸ”­

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7 months ago

Ffs my film lab uses this for all of the scans...

I honestly feel like it's a bit hopeless at this point to try and avoid AI scrapers tbh

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8 months ago

Giving you the benefit of the doubt since you apparently didn't know and not blocking you, but this is obvious AI and perhaps it's a hopeless fight at this point but don't encourage the use of AI images

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8 months ago

URGENT

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8 months ago
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Over 2,000 senior staff set to leave NASA under agency push The losses could endanger the administration’s plans for landing astronauts on the moon and Mars.

ALL CAPS

THIS IS CATASTROPHIC FOR SPACE SCIENCE AND ASTROPHYSICS ...

GLOBALLY CATASTROPHIC, NOT JUST FOR AMERICANS πŸ”­πŸ§ͺ

www.politico.com/news/2025/07...

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8 months ago
A silhouette of a Lesser Nighthawk against a pink-orange with dark cliffs of compacted ash (tuff) from the Bishop Volcanic Tablelands below

Lesser Nighthawk takes flight over the Volcanic Tablelands outside Bishop, CA. This is one of the few places where you can find both Common and Lesser Nighthawk! πŸͺΆπŸ“·

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8 months ago
A huge orange fan shaped fountain of lava sprays hundreds of feet up and out of a vent on Kilauea summit crater near sunrise.

Wooooowwwie wow wow. Kilauea going all out at the moment.

www.youtube.com/live/fiyttmA...

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8 months ago
A silhouette of a Lesser Nighthawk against a pink-orange with dark cliffs of compacted ash (tuff) from the Bishop Volcanic Tablelands below

Lesser Nighthawk takes flight over the Volcanic Tablelands outside Bishop, CA. This is one of the few places where you can find both Common and Lesser Nighthawk! πŸͺΆπŸ“·

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8 months ago

Amazing! I'm super jealous, are the Waikamoi volunteer-led hikes that were open to the public ever going to start back up?

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8 months ago
Three young peregrine falcons with brown and tan markings rest on the edge of a cliff. Photographed in San Pedro, California

This season, the Palos Verdes Peninsula saw two successful Peregrine Falcon nests, each producing three fledglings. Awesome to see this species thriving here!

#birds #bird #nature #wildlife #naturalist #photography

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8 months ago
Large antlers from two Tule Elk males stick above green grasses and marsh reeds with Mojave desert mountains in the background

Tule Elk sticking above the marsh grasses near the Owens river delta in the northwestern Mojave Desert #mammals

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8 months ago

I also accidentally re-lived my 2019 July 5th experience by driving to Malibu and finding it insanely packed with no parking (I was at home during the earthquake though)

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8 months ago
A large lizard with a bright blue head, yellow and orange spots, and orange around the eye

Skittish but spectacularly colored, Baja blue rock lizards only live in the cape region at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula 🦎

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8 months ago
A large lizard with a bright blue head, yellow and orange spots, and orange around the eye

Skittish but spectacularly colored, Baja blue rock lizards only live in the cape region at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula 🦎

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8 months ago

I absolutely love this book, I hope the movie does it justice

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8 months ago

I've started intentionally saying seagull again and sometimes even Canadian goose to make a point that correct common names are just the names people use

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8 months ago
A large fluffy Alpine marmot with gray and yellow fur sits in alpine tundra with green grass and plants

A big, fluffy Alpine Marmot in the French Alps #mammals πŸ“·

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8 months ago
Post image

Great Blue Heron with a bad hair day πŸͺΆ

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8 months ago
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Public Land Sale Provision Gets Axed The Senate rule keeper has nixed a Republican provision to sell upwards of 3 million acres of public lands. The Parliamentarian ruled that the measure falls outside what is allowable...

Public land sales have been removed from the budget bill!!! This is fantastic news for conservation and anyone who enjoys the outdoors in the US, and also proof that calling/emailing your reps absolutely works in large numbers

worksfornature.org/article/publ...

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8 months ago

Tell me about it, I just lost my car :/ trying to hitch a ride tomorrow..

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8 months ago
A large fluffy Alpine marmot with gray and yellow fur sits in alpine tundra with green grass and plants

A big, fluffy Alpine Marmot in the French Alps #mammals πŸ“·

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8 months ago

The "good" news is that apparently basically no group of Americans actually wants this, including Republicans who still poll overwhelmingly rejecting public land sales. I still have hope that the backlash can actually stop this and every call/email to senators/reps does a ton of good

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8 months ago
A map showing what BLM and USFS lands would be up for sale in the western CONUS. An image taken of Colorado's Maroon Bells from the still lake before it. In the foreground is the glass lake mirroring the landscape and sky above. A long log on the water reaches out from the left of the frame toward its center. On the other end of the lake is a lush green forest, with the forest stretching up the steep hills that bracket the image. Sitting right in the center of those hills are the Marron Bells - mountain peaks - partially coated in snow, and bathed in the saturated orange glow of the just-rising Sun. Overhead are blue skies with numerous puffy white clouds, some of which are still in the shadow of other mountains.

Millions of acres of public lands are eligible for sale in the Senate budget reconciliation package (as of 6-14). This would be the largest public lands sell-off in US history, and would bypass traditional safeguards such as public hearings & environmental reviews. 1/x
map: tinyurl.com/Lands4SaleMap

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