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 saw an owl in the wild for this first time yesterday - so cool. Of course it was the woods behind a library so it mkaes sense

Saw a heron gulp down a mouse. We were having lunch by the pond at work, when we heard squealing. The heron brought it to the water, dipped it a few times (not long), and swallowed it. I had no idea they caught small rodents.

Ya they eat all kinds of shit. I've seen GBH go after lizards and Great egrets go after varmints.

I've also seen GBH speak sea fish that are bigger than their heads and eat them in one gulp it is beautiful and upsetting.

speak<spear

I saw a heron gulping down a frog last year, got a low res pic of the frog's legs sticking out of its beak. It also dipped it in the water.

Maybe the GBH was just trying to help out a [City Baby](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music116/v4/e0/90/e6/e090e657-75fb-65d3-a832-015481332389/4050538764512.jpg/600x600bf-60.jpg).

Ah fuck, used reddit formatting there. Sorry.

Herons are also known as shitepokes /ˈʃaɪtpoʊk/, or euphemistically as shikepokes or shypokes. Webster's Dictionary suggests that herons were given this name because of their habit of defecating when flushed.[5]

imagine a huge fish flopping in yoru throat and you are thinking "swallow it" - this is pelican life

we have a lot of these weird night herons in Oakland, skulking around... they sometimes hang around Chinese restaurants & markets in Chinatown for some reason
"Quarkkk! Quarkk!"

https://mnbirdatlas.org/graphics/photos/BCNH_AshleyPeters_BBA.jpg

excellent!

in the last 20 years previous to 2024, I've lived here (in Montreal) and I've seen a total of 2 wild turkeys. This year I saw about 10 of them. So crazy to see such huge birds just casually walking around in my front yard.

yeah, I don't remember ever seeing wild turkeys as a child, now I see them all the time... fucking dinosaurs pecking around

They're definitely on the rise... I read an interesting online article about whether turkeys in California are an invasive species, but the author concluded that their DNA so closely matches 'extinct' wild turkeys (bones found in native american sites, etc.) that they're essentially a 'reintroduced' species and are pretty important with their scratching around, also as a food source for bobcats and mountain lions

(I'm just gonna stay on this thread for the next four years, btw)

I recently learned that bobcats have been seen a lot closer to my Maryland home than I would have expected. The closest confirmed sighting that I found was like an hour away, but I didn't think they came down out of the mountains.

that's good news! such a rare, beautiful animal to run into in the wild, I saw one on the hunt while hiking a couple years back.. s/he paid me no notice

I loved when we had a flock of turkys in our hood but they seem to have moved away. I was considering just buying baby turekys to repopulate the hood

I spotted a covey of quail on sunday in the east bay hills

i had a couple of peacocks on my porch for a few hours, just sitting in the sun relaxing, a couple years ago. never saw 'em again until about 2 weeks ago, so they belong to someone here (CA foothills) i guess!

Peacocks are everywhere here in this part of the San Gabriel Valley
https://laist.com/shows/take-two/hear-in-socal-the-peacocks-of-arcadia

4 jays within about 20ft this morning, have only ever seen them singly before, and then not often.

You can usually guarantee that if you see 1 jay, there's another around close by. 4 is pretty great though. Beautiful looking things, with the ugliest squawking cry!

My favourite jay fact is that they move something like 1 billion acorns in the autumn. They move them to the edges of woodland areas and return for the new growth in late spring. Oaks trees are relatively poor at colonising new ground; the relationship with jays is symbiotic.

Jays are one of those birds where the european jay and the american jay are totally different. so i'm talking about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_jay

rather than these (which are very pretty)
https://www.birdsandblooms.com/birding/meet-jays-blue-jays-stellers-jays-western-scrub-jays/

('autumn' suggests you are too but the above clarification doesn't hurt)

and they did all seem to be intent on pilfering the fruit off the roadside trees, i could see the fruit in the beaks of a couple of them

ha

> The Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius)
> The genus name Garrulus is a Latin word meaning "chattering", "babbling" or "noisy". The specific epithet glandarius is Latin meaning "of acorns".

Hah - had no idea about that second bit! Amazing.

i caught a mouse in one of those catcha nd release traps but it was dead anyway :(

I throw unsalted peanuts out my kitchen window, attracting both scrub jays and Stellar's jays... the scrub jays are bold and will take them out of my hand

Yes, lots of (Euopean) jays around at the moment, caching acorns. At the recent RSPB exhibition at the Natural History Museum they had a game where you got to play a jay burying acorns, making sure you didn't do this in plain sight of the magpie, who'd eat them, and the cat, who'd eat you!

Jay has the worst cry of any UK bird, IMHO. Sounds like someone throwing up after a hard night on the booze.

the crows in kirkwall orkney sound pretty awful as well

Keep an eye out for those banded birds kids. Reporting them is fun

I watched a little bug get stuck in the spider web this morning at my window, swiftly dragged away by the large garden spider. then thirty minutes later, a blue tit hovered over and noshed on the spider.

update

turns out he hadn't scoffed the spider, must have been something else, cos the spider just showed up for his dessert.

i saw this over the summer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4pGjA1qBl0

Not that this is really a "sighting", because they live there and you can go looking for them, but this is a yearly treat to myself (Richmond Park):

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52611784954_a145929d9c_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52612010713_fef30a75f9_h.jpg

imagine if your horns fell off each year and you had to regrow

home for the holidays. two jackdaws on every chimney pot. goldfinches by the dozen.

Redwing Invasion Moment

It's all about jays round our way. The scientific name tells you what you need to know: Garrulus glandarius -- the talkative acorn eater. Although sometimes I wish they wouldn't be talkative: it's among the least attractive sound of any bird. Sounds like someone being sick.

Oh I had those in the trees too this morning! For a moment there it was jays and redwings. Then they all left it to the goldfinches and chaffinches...

it's among the least attractive sound of any bird

not sure what jay you're talking about.. but I always have Stellars Jays and Scrub Jays visiting out my kitchen window, and I love their annoying squawks; it's a nostalgic sounds for me

I painted my nails black as a teenager, and I always had Florida Blue Jays try to eat them--I'm assuming that they thought they were big seeds. I also remember two of them who I watched flying at and pecking a big buzzard that was about 20 sizes bigger than them both combined. It ignored them.

I definitely see crows chasing/harassing red tailed hawks around here, but I don't think I've seen a crow with that kind of courage

excuse me, a JAY with that courage

Crows are BIG. Way bigger than birds you feed in your yard! (Unless you feed crows, I guess.)

plus they hate hawks especially

like, legendary beef going back to ancient times

related:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1hnqd53/ive_angered_a_family_of_ravens_how_do_i_appease/

(Unless you feed crows, I guess.)

They started noticing me feeding unsalted peanuts in the shell to squirrels & jays, and now two hulking crows have been hanging out the kitchen window... they're far more wary, the scrub jays will take them right from my hand, but soon I hope to have an army of crows to do my bidding and exact revenge on all who have wronged me