I got two new birds today, so now I’m up to 127 species on my Life List—the same number as our Johto Pokédex.

Just realized something about Sableye: From FireRed and LeafGreen onward, almost every single dex entry it’s had has basically just said that it eats gemstones (which I find to be disappointing and boring), but the original Ruby and Sapphire dex entries didn’t say anything about that and did say some really interesting things about Sableye that I wish later games hadn’t scrapped.

I’ll put the dex entries and my thoughts on them in the comments because I ran out of space here:

I was recently able to narrow down my list of my top favorite Pokémon to six. I think that’s pretty great because that’s the exact number you can have on a team, and it just worked out naturally without me trying to hit that number. My prior list has 28 Pokémon on it, because that’s just how many it felt right to add to the list, but I recently realized that I like exactly 6 of them more than all the others: Articuno, Suicune, Sableye, Altaria, Absol, and Dialga.

My prior list was mainly made up of Pokémon from Gens 5-8, with 17 of the 28 being from those gens, so it also kind of surprised me that my top favorites ended up being from Gens 1-4. But, despite them all being at least 18 years old, I couldn’t find any game where they’re all obtainable without transferring from other games, so that’s kind of sad. Ultra Sun gets the closest, but you still have to trade Entei in from another game to be able to get Suicune.

My day started out really surprisingly well for me and then quickly turned awful because I saw a news headline that made my blood boil. And now I’ve been crying for I don’t know how long.

It’s strange how my purple martins seem to have gone from singing in the morning in the spring to singing in the afternoon in the summer.

I’m really looking forward to when it cools down enough for the bugs to be gone and me to be able to step outside without anxiously looking around for wasps that are about to swoop down on me. (As soon as I typed that I looked up and saw a wasp at the window.)

I’m currently shiny-hunting Staryu at Hano Beach, and I think this is the closest I’ve come to doing something in the spirit of summer. I hate this season. At least the forecast shows that it is supposed to start cooling down as soon as August comes (but I don’t trust it).

Well, another app has completely quit working because of my phone being too old. The saga continues.

I’m really holding on for August when things will hopefully get colder and quieter. I have to believe July is the only month where every day and night is hot, loud, and miserable.

I think that Indian peacocks are really beautiful even without their tail feathers, although it’s probably the tail feathers that made them famous. It feels weird to say that a bird that has its own emoji 🦚 and is the official national bird of the most-populated country on Earth is “underrated” in any way, but I was surprised by how rare pictures of peacocks that’ve dropped their tail feathers are online, even though they do it every year. I was able to find some photos, though, and I love the way they look without their tails or with them just growing back in. I think that, without the distraction of the tail, it’s easier to see how beautiful the metallic blue plumage that they have on their heads, necks, and breasts year-round is. And it’s that blue that I love the most.

I don’t think I’m gonna survive this heat wave. The “extreme heat warning” from the national weather service lasts for five days, but the 10-day forecast doesn’t look any different after that point.

I can’t sleep and am also frustrated because I’m dealing with a problem that I can’t even do anything about for several days at least. Having to wait to even find out how bad the situation might be really sucks. Maybe it’s just because I’m sleep-deprived that I can’t focus on anything else.

This month was always going to be the worst one of the year with the heat, explosives, and bugs, but I didn’t expect these personal issues to pop up as well.

Finally got Roaring Moon. It took 12 days and 23 hours.

Why is it so difficult to hatch just one more Dark-type?

I went down the craziest rabbit hole last night looking at taxonomy. Here’s a view of it starting with birds and going back:

The dinosaurs did not go extinct. Only non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. Birds are the only living dinosaurs.

Birds and crocodilians are each others’ closest relatives. They’re the only living archosaurs.

Archosaurs and turtles are each others’ closest relatives. They’re the only living archelosaurs.

Archelosaurs and lepidosaurs (lizards, snakes, and the tuatara) make up the class Reptilia.

Reptiles and mammals (including humans) are each others’ closest relatives. They’re the only living reptiliomorphs. (This might be where the “lizard people” thing came from—because humans are reptiliomorphs, but, interestingly, amphibians aren’t.)

Reptiliomorphs and amphibians (frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians) are each others’ closest relatives. They’re the only living tetrapods.

Craziness will accelerate in the comments because I’m out of space:

I forgot about Drilbur... So, I guess it was only a 1/3 chance... And I got the mole of disappointment :(

I’m really bummed out that I haven’t managed to get Roaring Moon yet. But I just need one more Dark-type, and I think I’ve got a coin flip for the first egg in my party to be one. It’s a Medium-rarity Ground-type with 5,355 EHP, and I think the only two Pokémon that fit that description are Sandile and Silicobra. So, here’s hoping it’s the adorable little crocodile and not the snake of disappointment.

Also, fun fact: Crocodilians are the closest living relatives of birds, and birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians. They’re the only living members of the Archosauria clade.

Just found and had to catch and release another skink in my house. I have no idea what’s going on, why they’re suddenly getting in when they never have before.

Because it’s storming IRL, I just got confused when I was able to go to Emera Beach, as if the lightning outside would mean we’d have that same weather here, lol... I really need to sleep, but I figure that won’t be possible until the storm passes.

Feeling good about myself because I just managed to get 3/3 correct on one of those “Which one is cake?” videos.