nature sightings

i saw a geese

https://i.ibb.co/9r8MSTz/IMAG4140.jpg

(pictures optional)

my cat saw a baby lizard

https://i.ibb.co/hKMYP2v/5310-D0-AC-5986-4-F2-C-9-A64-BB016-D08-B2-F4.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EE_NXsgWkAArUaf?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

my dog saw a horse recently and has quite an obsession with them.

also in my local park there is sizeable colony of feral parakeets. I know there are lot of them dotted around London but we have them too!

but he/she hasn't been able to play with horses yet?

Your dog is a beaut, calz!

love that picture even if its foci are somewhat domestic

thanx gyac, he is a stunningly handsome dog even by labbie standards tbf

The only time Douglas has seen a horse in open space (with a rider) he froze and looked on in awe and kept a safe distance. But he's very curious and chill with them when there is a wall between them.

Thought this fucker might be a hornet - not much longer than a wasp but way fatter - turns out it's a hornet mimic hoverfly

https://scontent-lht6-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/0aded4eaf748eb593b3609e29cfeb639/5E3292F2/t51.2885-15/e35/71175326_2502203529838221_5677744433439880073_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-lht6-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_cat=109

fucker? seems like a jolly sort of fellow

well now i know it's harmless, yeah.

Spotted in St James’s Park a while back

Greylag goose
https://i.postimg.cc/3JKtc4yB/0487159-A-143-C-41-C1-8-C05-2-D96-EBCD5683.jpg

Egyptian geese
https://i.postimg.cc/CMCv7HK5/1-DBD0-AD8-980-D-4-A06-9-F47-1-C0-CA36-A8035.jpg

Dinosaur
https://i.postimg.cc/FsDT5r3Q/F8071-C45-F265-47-BA-80-F9-67-A70729-D8-E3.jpg

Last Wednesday I was wilderness hiking and saw a grouse walking on the trail ahead of me. It did not stop long enough for a formal introduction. Later, at lunch, I saw a kestrel fly past. I was on top of a mountainous ridge at 4600 ft above sea level. There was fresh coyote scat on the trail, too.

Lately we have had a few of the local deer (both does and bucks) wander through our back yard. They seem to get restless at this time of year and move about more during the day.

wild deer started showing up in my area last summer. I wish I'd got a pic at least once, but seeing them is such an oddity for what is a semi-rural area that I'm always too lost in the moment to grab the phone when I see them.

Came across this badass yesterday.

https://i.imgur.com/rGp2kTV.jpg

(Florida Predatory Stinkbug)

all 3 of those words make me wince

me too! But apparently they are local to me and beneficial eaters of nuisance insects. Unlike the crazy invasive Brown Marmorated Stinkbugs that infest my house in winter time.

https://imgur.com/gallery/vAvhBC7

I saw a deer on the isle of islay

Also, these weirdos

https://i.imgur.com/Z4CyZ4i.gifv

(a pupal ladybug and what I think is a lacewing larva carrying on its back a mixture of lichen, moss, and the corpses of its victims!)

https://i.imgur.com/Z4CyZ4i.gif

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D7u5xEJWkAEs77s?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

some yummy caviar spider's eggs I spotted on my hedge this summer.

“Hi we live in your yard” is also a good thred for this

I saw a white morph squirrel in a cemetery last month:

https://i.imgur.com/NMmLFCZ.jpg

Although these squirrels are commonly referred to as "albinos", most of them are likely non-albino squirrels that exhibit a rare white fur coloration known as leucism that is as a result of a recessive gene found within certain eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) populations, and so technically they ought to be referred to as white squirrels, instead of albino.

It was the first time I'd ever seen one, but I dutifully reported my sighting to Untamed Science's white squirrel project. apparently there are towns where residents make an extra effort to feed and shelter white squirrels (even going so far as to trap and release grey ones outside of town to eliminate the competition), which boosts their population over time in what amounts to a sort of selective breeding program. Marionville, Montana is the white squirrel capital of the USA, though theirs tend to be true albinos.

it looks like Andover, Massachusetts (where my squirrel lives) is a known WS enclave:

https://www.eagletribune.com/news/merrimack_valley/white-wonders-andover-is-home-to-a-colony-of-white/article_47009119-03a5-5f6c-b441-420ff3fc12ec.html

That's great! I was just looking up albino squirrels recently after listening to Weird Al Yankovic's The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota.

The scenery was just so pretty, boy I wish the kids could've seen it
But you can't see out of the side of the car
Because the windows are completely covered
With the decals from all the places where we've already been
Like Elvis-O-Rama, the Tupperware Museum
The Boll Weevil Monument and Cranberry World
The Shuffleboard Hall Of Fame, Poodle Dog Rock
And The Mecca of Albino Squirrels

somewhere out there is the captain ahab of squirrels, running the untamed science project

these are all gr8, mad props to that camouflage bark bug and of course our universal friend the dark dinosaur

pretty sure that was a coyote that ran in front of my car this evening. don't think i've seen one in an urban area like that before!

Where are you/near what city?
There's a tract of "state trust" undeveloped land behind my house so I often hear a whole pack of coyotes going berserk in the middle of the night

i don't see unexpected creatures very often but i hear them, especially at night

mostly i don't know what they are sadly, they can't all be horrible geese or urban vixens in heat

Heraclitus: 'Nature loves to hide.'

Coyote was in a semi industrial area in Kansas City. It is near a creek with railroad tracks that parallel it, so that might provide a good corridor for coyote movement.

this afternoon I spotted a trio of white-tailed deer in the woods at the border of a condo complex:

https://i.imgur.com/nKKFmP0.jpg

they ran off when a lady with a dog walked by, only to reappear with seven of their friends in an adjacent field about 15 minutes later. I got a few more shots of them just before they raced around the perimeter of the field and back into the woods.

https://i.imgur.com/EDLzoJQ.jpg

A couple of days ago a bunny darted away from me as I came out our basement door. It flashed away so fast I thought it was just one of our neighborhood squirrels, except it ran into our garage, which is where I was going. When I came through the garage door I saw it hunkered by some flower pots, trembling, so I spoke to it reassuringly and left quietly.

I often see them in our yard, because they live in the empty woodlot across a dead-end one lane road that adjoins our yard. They come over to eat the dandelions. It's rare to see one this early in the year, though.

Saw what I’m pretty sure were three turkey vultures sitting in a tree this morning while I was driving to work

Was it a dead tree?

Probably not, but none of the trees have leaves yet, so it’s hard to tell at a glance

Sorry, that was an obscure campfire song joke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW77-qleewM

Took a walk with my daughter down to the river on Saturday and the gorgeous weather this weekend brought out all kinds of animal life, most of which I wasn't able to take a picture of.

• There were a couple things out of the corner of my eye that I believe were some kind of salamander, dropping off of dead tree branches into the water.
• Saw a turtle head swimming across the water.
• 5 chickadees in some sort of tumultuous fight. Mating or territorial behavior, I'm guessing.
• This little guy, a northern water snake. They are common around here and frequently confused with copperheads, but are totally harmless.

• The best thing I saw though was a muskrat, which I've never seen before. The kid and I both noticed it swimming quickly toward us, on the banks of the water. It jumped out of the water right in front of me and hit the bottom of my shoe. It turned out that the entrance to it's burrow was underneath the riprap we were perched on.

In a smallish park (about 200 x 800m) in the middle of suburbia (though linked to other open spaces) a muntjac deer dashing not particularly quickly across the grass between two wooded areas. Then a heron flying overhead and landing in a stream about 20m away, later standing and watching while we were about 10m away, before flying off. Also cabbage whites, a speckled wood, orange tip, and brimstone.

very grand!

I've found a couple of monster stag beetles in the garden over the last few days. We've got railway sleepers in a few places, a couple of which have rotted, so I wonder if they've been nesting in there. One is easily the biggest I've seen and christ he was strong - was properly trying to have me through my gardening gloves. Awesome. The downside is my idiot cat who keeps hassling them: he's tried to bring two in, in the last two nights, and I don't really know what else to do - 'they're endangered, you hairy idiot!' isn't working.

Just to follow this up, I'm sat outside tonight (amazing stitch of a new moon just above the horizon) and there's a symphony of stag beetles buzzing and clattering across the purpling sky - maybe 4 or 5 different specimens and they're such awful fliers, like helicopters in a hurricane. They keep crashing into the back door, or landing in the hosters - each time throttling the wings and sounding entirely confused about the whole endeavour. What a daft, magnificent creature.

brings me back to my youth scampering about nature reserves :) i didn't know they were that endangered! but like greenfinches or frogs i guess there's a reason i rarely see them nowadays

today i saw a couple turkeys in a park where i had never seen them before. they were running too fast to get pictures, and one of them took flight before i lost sight of it. they definitely seem more like small dinosaurs than most birds do.

https://i.imgur.com/b9ccrWY.jpg

Mottled Tortoise Beetle

Does anyone fuck with the iNaturalist app? I just started in the last week or so and haven't totally got the hang of it. But it's like having a Pokedex in your pocket - does automated lookups of pictures that you upload. It isn't always correct, but then there's a social component where other users can check out your pics and suggest identifications.

This little guy, a northern water snake. They are common around here and frequently confused with copperheads, but are totally harmless.

Also, learned that "totally harmless" isn't the best descriptor for northern water snakes, since they are pretty aggressive and will bite if you fuck with them. But they are non-venomous.

hummingbird hawk moth yesterday

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/sites/default/files/styles/node_hero_default/public/2018-01/Hummingbird%20Hawkmoth%202%20%28c%29%20Derek%20Moore.jpg

(not my pic)

Sweet! I saw one of those once - was very confusing, like looking at a platypus.

Jealous of you both, having just learned of the existence of hummingbird moths a few weeks ago.

I'm jealous of the cricket noise and have been all my life, you'd have to go the snake food section of Pets At Home to hear them where I live and that isn't a very pleasant way to hear them.

I usually see about one snapping turtle a year in my neighborhood. This lady, however, chose a local playground as a less-than-ideal spot to lay her eggs. After several frantic early morning calls to wildlife rehabilitation experts, we just let her finish her egg-laying (as is required by law in MD). Then a neighbor and I hauled her back to the river. Apparently, they lay the eggs really deep (one rehabber described the egg hole as "like a Pringles can") so there's a chance the turtles will be okay. I'm to keep an eye on the spot in early August to see if any hatchlings need help making their way to water.

https://i.imgur.com/qMaBcFb.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/irjZnVd.jpg

Also saw my first pileated woodpecker last week, at the same playground! I've wanted to see one of those since I was a little kid watching Woody Woodpecker. It was a majestic bird, but I frightened it off by pursuing it too eagerly in hopes of a photo.

Saw some good pelicans yesterday. I usually see them once a summer and assumed they were migrating, but apparently they hang out in Wisconsin more than I thought.

Played with the kids in a river in wales where otters and kingfishers have been seen, obviously didn't see those with kids around but did see and catch (and return) some crayfish, up to 12cm long! Probably not that impressive to those more familiar with these things but it was a shock to me that you can find crustaceans as big as that in our rivers. It was only last year that I saw tiny (1cm) freshwater shrimp for the first time.

goslings!

https://i.ibb.co/Pzyd9qV/IMG-20230602-142458274.jpg

Was sitting on a bench today and saw a barn swallow perched on a hanging cable directly under the eaves of a building. He was keeping a close eye on my wife and me, kind of stepping to left and right but never flying away. Then I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and realized there was a nest at the top of one of the building's columns about five feet from where he was perched. He was guarding his family. So we got up and left. Didn't want to disturb him any further.

Stag beetle action in the Chinaski garden, pt 1

https://i.imgur.com/o1v5ILR.jpg

Pt 2: I didn't know where to look

https://i.imgur.com/ZAMcTIk.jpg

Awesome!

https://i.imgur.com/XIyaX1H.jpg

Came across this luna moth just before sunset yesterday.

I saw a turtle by a path this morning. In an odd coincidence, I was listening to Supertramp, who have a song called "Hide in Your Shell".

the turtles in Central Park eat hotdogs. fishermen buy franks from vendors in the park and use them to lure turtles in the Lake away from their lines. i was surprised to learn they're not vegetarians.

walking down the high street i saw a guy crouched down trying to coax a remarkable looking golden hairy caterpillar onto a shopping back, though it was more intent on crossing the road. i managed to coax it onto a bit of paper and we put it on the only bi of scrubby green space near by. at one point my app identified it as a dagger moth but now it's not so sure.

https://i.imgur.com/s29gJWi.jpg

further searching reveals it to be a sycamore moth caterpillar.

So orange! I have also been coaxing caterpillars onto pieces of paper.

https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/305429330/large.jpeg

https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/305504763/large.jpeg

This one was an American dagger moth.

why are they so hairy

oh i also finally achieved my ambition of seeing a kingfisher - just the typical flash of blue across a river from about 30 metres away, so ambition updated to a better sighting.

In some species, the hairs are a protection against predators. On this guy, the long black hairs contain venom and can sting you. On other species, like the sycamore moth above, their fuzz breaks off in your skin if you try to grab it, leading to irritation. But then you have others like wooly bear caterpillars (from the Isabella tiger moth), where the fuzz doesn't seem to cause any harm at all.

yes protection against predators was my first thought, immediately followed by 'why are the non hairy ones so non hairy then' :)

neither of us caterpillar rescuers wanted to touch it so job done anyway.

around 2 a.m. i bumped into a trio of raccoons coming toward me on the path. two were lagging behind, pouncing on and grooming each other, while the third, the smallest, rabbit-sized, ambled up to me with frank interest until he was about a foot away. then he seemed to realize i was a human and slowly backed up, confused. one in the back noticed us and stood up like a little bear to get a look at me, and then they all faded into the shadows.

i bet if i'd had a snack with me i could have knelt and offered it to them, and we could have become great friends.

basically i want this

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2PWm13NnlJw/TsGT2s_bFEI/AAAAAAAALEM/MUgrwutDsXU/s400/raccoon-duct-tape-food-to-her.jpg

They're so adorable. I wish they didn't have such a problem with rabies.

Several years ago, I was chaperoning a group of 1st graders to a nature center field trip. I had a few braggadocious boys in my group who were claiming to have seen all sorts of animals. "I saw a bald eagle!" "I saw a deer!" "I saw a rattlesnake!" I'm 100% sure the wildest thing they saw was a squirrel. I know because we all stopped to look at it for like, 3 minutes.

After we sat down to lunch at some picnic tables, a girl told me in the quietest little voice "I saw a raccoon." And, absentmindedly passing out the lunch bags, I'm like "Oh where did you see it?" And she points, and quietly says "over there." And sure enough, the biggest chonker of a raccoon I've ever seen was popping out of a dumpster next to the picnic pavilion! So I gathered all my kids and we all hurried over to get a slightly closer look at this wildlife before it clambered up a tree. Her observation was the highlight of the field trip for all of us.

Anyway, here's a crappy cell phone pic of a bald eagle I did see (ha! ha! first-grade boys) while kayaking the other day.

https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/316077341/original.jpeg

wild turkey family

https://i.ibb.co/VpWf5s2/IMG-20230823-131146111-HDR-2.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/XSXfj4p/IMG-20230823-131152079-HDR-3.jpg

raccoons near 108th st in riverside park emerge from a crack in the wall every evening approx 5:30pm before an adoring audience bearing scraps. they are celebrities.

a racoon licked my shin once while i was drinking a glass of wine in my friend's backyard in the middle of the night. i was startled by it's sweet kiss and jumped, then looked under the table expecting to find a puppy.

A herd of between 12 and 20 deer, depending on the night, shows up in the field behind my apartment building pretty much every night. It's been a few weeks, maybe two months, so I've been able to watch them grow, which is pretty amazing.

heard squealing out the front and went to have a look and there were two urban foxes going through the binbags (only recycling so slim pickings). one wandered off, the other just curled up in the middle of the road (it's 02:30 and the end of the road's closed for water works so no traffic)

Speaking of foxes and the middle of the road, we have had foxes in our neighborhood for years. It's been fun to catch an occasional glimpse of them at night dashing into someone's yard late at night. But this year, for some reason, they've started shitting in the street. You can tell it's fox scat rather than someone's dog because there are usually some visible berry seeds or the occasional tuft of fur.

Used to walking past foxes in the middle of the day now as they gingerly wait between two parked cars for you to pass by on the pavement just a couple of metres away so they can get back to that tasty binload.

a deer, less than ten metres away, watching us over a fence for a couple of minutes. I'm no deer expert but I think maybe it was a young roe, not a muntjac.

also I've been hearing an owl at night, haven't seen it yet but someone on the street took a photo of it on sitting on a television aerial.

if using my binoculars to watch squirrels have sex is pervy voyeurism then i don't want to be right, squirrels have the cutest sex

most of the squirrel sex outside my kitchen window seems involuntary, a lot of chasing from branch to branch

aw, my little guys do lots of cute grooming and tumbling in the branches, the only chasing happens when an unwanted third pops up!

Am in Taiwan right now. Squirrels here small and dark brown ie black. We've seen lots of birds, mainly black drongos and night herons. At night as well as the aforementioned herons you hear night hawks squawking loudly. They're misnamed...not Raptors, but related to the nightjar. We've heard lots of frogs, but haven't actually spotted any!

drongos r so goth i love them

those bloodred eyes, hell yeah

it is very cool, imo, that you are in taiwan! and hearing invisible frogs! out here in boringsville, usa, i ~think~ i've maybe started to hear quiet froglike creaky croaks near marshy areas -- in addition to the red winged blackbird boys staking out nesting sites for their sweeties -- but it might just be bugs impersonating frogs for secret reasons?

A family of six deers in a field yesterday night on my run - God bless summer time

In seven months of running along the canals and other waterways of Birmingham I've seen plenty of herons, the odd egret and once only the glorious blue flash of a kingfisher. In two runs in Norfolk last week I was somewhat disappointed to see only one muntjac deer and nothing else out of the ordinary.

at home over christmas i saw a muntjac deer carcass by the side of the road (in the wooded area by a motorway bridge) followed about 5 yards further on by another. nobody has ever mentioned seeing live deer around there.

saw a couple of bank vole in the new forest on monday

i am envisioning harried little voles in 3 piece suits

they are carrying tiny editions of the financial times

just spotted in my inner-ish London front garden: a blackcap!

I really recommend the Merlin app, which identifies birds by their sounds. Know what the birds are before you see them!

https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

It doesn't only work for birdsong; it can identify woodpeckers by their pecking!

learning to identify birdsong yourself (which you'll be able to do over time if you use one of the apps regularly) is genuinely one of the most life-enriching things you can do

what once was just pleasant background noise becomes incredibly engrossing - especially when you can pick out alarm calls and know something (e.g. a hawk) might be about to go down

Also when you know most of the common birds, anytime you hear something out of the ordinary you'll be desperately scrabbling for your app!

@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