Amethyst Qu
Bio
Seeker, traveler, birder, crystal collector, photographer. I sometimes visit the mysterious side of life. Author of "The Moldavite Message" and "Crystal Magick, Meditation, and Manifestation."
https://linktr.ee/amethystqu
Stories (116/0)
How Stock Photo Agencies Make Nature Writers Swear
I don’t know who needs to hear this right now, but when I’m the king of the world, photographers who deliberately misidentify their photos are going to Gitmo. We all make mistakes in bird identification, but there are mistakes and there are “mistakes,” and then there’s this:
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Journal
- Top Story - October 2021
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Is Officially ExtinctTop Story - October 2021
The Fish and Wildlife Service has called the game. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct. Well, my friends, the referee’s whistle has been a long time coming. The slow-rolling deliberate killing of this bird in the 1930s and ’40s is a terrible story of human greed — and a very well-documented one.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
Night of the Living Cutie-Pies
Author's note: I grabbed these off-the-cuff candid photos at a public party in Venus Fort, Tokyo in October 2012. We all know how the movie goes. In the event of the zombie apocalypse, the first thing you do is l̶o̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶o̶l̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶f̶f̶ head out to the mall to pick up some supplies. A secluded mall, far out of town, big and overbuilt, with everything you need, is just the ticket.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Horror
We See More Rufous Hummingbirds Than Ever While Their Population Is Crashing
What happens when a common bird seems to be everywhere-- and yet the cold hard census numbers show that its population keeps spiraling down? Will we act in time to save that bird? Or will we trick ourselves into waiting until it's too late?
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
Gone But Not Forever
When Jason Molina sings, "I've been riding with the ghost/ I've been doing whatever he told me," you don't doubt the guy for a minute. What better way to start any Halloween playlist than with a song from a guy who knows from ghosts, real ghosts, the ones that won't be bought off with a scoop of candy corn?
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Beat
- Top Story - September 2021
Butterflies of BoliviaTop Story - September 2021
Author's note: This isn't just a story about photographing butterflies in rural Bolivia, although it's certainly about that. It's a story about the unexpected gifts of beauty we meet in wild places. A shorter version of this story originally appeared on another platform.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
When Somebody Else’s Tree Falls on Your Property, Here’s What Happens
One fateful day in July, around one in the afternoon, the sudden roar of the wind turned me toward my office window. In the blink of an eye, a gust yanked brutally on a thirty-foot tree limb, spun it around, flung it down onto my fence and into my yard. Only a thread of bark broke its fall and stopped my new fence from being flung to the ground with it.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Lifehack
Moldavite: Dangerous Stone That Blows Up Your Life?
Author's Note: This article is a reprint of a previously published Medium story. As the author of The Moldavite Message, I’ve had some pretty off-the-wall experiences with this mysterious green tektite. Is it a powerful stone? Yes. Can it help the metaphysical student blast away emotional and psychological blocks? Also yes.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Motivation
Non-Random Encounters With Swallow-Tailed Kites
“Our most beautiful bird of prey... Hanging motionless in the air, swooping and gliding, rolling upside down and then zooming high in the air with scarcely a motion of its wings, the Swallow-tailed Kite is a joy to watch.”-- The Audubon Guide to North American Birds
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
Black Diamonds Off the Back of That Guy's White Ford F100
Call it 1993. One summer in the early 1990s, hubby and I were selling raw stones at the Harrison County, Mississippi gem and mineral show. A guy in a white Ford truck with Alabama plates pulled up. Nervous guy. Probably broke too, because he doesn't have $60 to pay the booth fee. Instead, he sort of slipped sideways into the show, and pretty soon he arrived at us.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
'We Weren't Always Extinct'
In 1993, I bought this landscape stone from an Arkansas woman selling crystals for$1/pound off a table by the side of the road. Oh, I bought some crystals too, but this chunk of extinct fossil seabed grabbed my attention. From the sound of it, her husband and their sons had collected it against her advice.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
That Time I Saw Jupiter's Moons Naked Eye
Jupiter's four largest moons are easy to see in my binoculars. They are familiar friends that I often look for when I spot Jupiter's golden light in the night sky. However, on October 24, 2012, in the wee hours of the night in Tokyo, I had an odd experience with Jupiter's moons that I still can't explain.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in FYI