nature sightings

@girlinwhiteglasses on instagram has a series of cool posts for birdsong identification: "if it sounds like a..."

https://www.instagram.com/girlinwhiteglasses/

Regarding alarm sounds, I saw a hawk grab lunch from a nest the other day. Various other birds were in the air and branches around it, creating a racket. A few were definitely crows, but there were smaller birds in there that I couldn't identify.

We saw a Northern Flicker woodpecker on the ground we thought was dead. Turns out it was feeding - they dig for ants and beetles.

recently saw a yellow shafted northern flicker in the vacant lot outside my kitchen window... I jumped up, had no idea what the hell it was... I thought it might be somebody's escaped pet. Apparently pretty rare in the west, but not unknown in the winter

https://photoartflight.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/mg_3370paf.jpg
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/NFlickers2-yellow_McMullen-red_Steckel.jpg

Yes, recently I found out the same is true of one of the UK woodpeckers. The green woodpecker feeds mainly on ants on the ground and doesn't forage on tree trunks like the others.

Jeez that yellow woodpecker is beautiful.

Green woodpeckers don't drum either - only greater spot/lesser spot (and it's only in the spring for sexxy reasons, not, as one might think, to get food).

This magnificent giant Pacific Octopus caught off the coast of California by sportfishers pic.twitter.com/X3upclo62I

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 7, 2024

free him

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMg802MW8AEadnd?format=jpg&name=large

because I have a big tree in my garden every summer I get a lot of bees, particularly these ones (chocolate mining bees- pleasing taxonomy, but these fuckers have stung my feet many times). This year I have a nest of them somewhere deep under my garden and they are in big numbers at the side of my house every evening. The garden is raised up 9 ft with a brick wall at the side and they are coming and going in between their nest and my world through gaps in the concrete render and drainage holes in the brick wall.

gamera say hi to me

https://i.imgur.com/mSfIWjN.jpeg

I saw two porpoises in san francisco bay yesterday, right by Pier 30/32... there must be a herring run or something to draw them that far in

not so much of a sighting but...

on the flat roof outside my window i noticed a pebble-sized lump of some pink foam recently. more each day until there were a good 5 or 6 bits of it out there. i think it's insulation from the roof.

yesterday i noticed they'd all been collected up and put into the little water bowl that's out there.

maybe it's experiment time...

(just been to have a look, no obvious source for the foam - the recent work has blocked the previous hole by the drain)