nature sightings

"Come on up, and I'll show you my caligraphy..."

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

Margined caligrapher flies

𝑜𝒽 𝓁𝒶 𝓁𝒶

I highly recommend the Seek app for plant/bug/bird/ identification (if you can get the bugs or birds to stay still long enough). It can pinpoint a species almost instantly if you can get a good shot of it. Only downside is that I have been meaning to take my phone out less, not more, especially outdoors & with the kids around.

Ooh, that'd prove handy for bugs and plants. I prefer to flex my skillz for birds (but I could probably do with a call identification app, of which there are many)

BirdNet is the call ID app I've been using for the past few years

At this point I can pretty much identify anything you're likely to hear in a Dublin garden by ear. It really is one of the most satisfying things you can learn

I'll definitely give that a try.

I've learned it all by ear over the years and a combination of transliterations in books (which, jeez) and https://xeno-canto.org. I can manage all the garden birds and a fair chunk of the rest of the woodland/farmland birds (wildfowl is another story).

Seek looks good. Thanks for the heads up.

transliterations in books (which, jeez)

yeah, these never even sound remotely like what I'm hearing

I highly recommend the Seek app for plant/bug/bird/ identification (if you can get the bugs or birds to stay still long enough).

I use the iNaturalist app. My wife found a similar app for rocks and minerals last week, but I haven't checked it out yet myself.

And yes, staying still for long enough is a problem with insects, for sure. I now almost exclusively refer to butterflies as "damned butterflies" because they are such a pain to photograph. I don't take many bird pics - they are usually too far away for my cell phone camera to get a good picture of. Either that or they're conveniently backlit by the sun.

Saw some American Goldfinches yesterday. Although they're not rare or anything, they're still kinda an uncommon treat for me.

My friends on their Lake District jaunt were highly impressed when I responded to their speculative WhatsApp recording with an instant 'Willow warbler' recently #braggin

The worst ever bird guide transliteration I've seen was my beloved childhood bird guide claiming that the Cetti's Warbler goes 'cetti! cetti!', which is just hilarious, it is more like 'cha! wurr-chacha-wurr-cha'

Cetti's are so explosive and acidic - and they always seem to be right there in your face, even when 30 yards away.

I'm convinced they use willow warblers as pretty much every 'bird' Foley effect on telly programmes - including the US programmes I catch (and often totally out of season). Anyone else noticed that?

Saw this wood louse infected with isopod iridescent virus, which turns them a bluish-purple color.

https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/206537054/large.jpeg

Things you were shockingly old when you learned: sloe = blackthorn, and they are fairly abundant, though none of the ones near me seem to have fruited this year - except for a neighbours hedge, so I'm finally getting round to making sloe gin. On my quest to find sloes I found some people picking rosehips for rosehip and lemon gin so maybe I'll give that a go too.

Oh I saw a heron on the towpath too:

https://i.imgur.com/jk2Mtb7.jpg

it's big boy day

Seen parakeets in Oxford recently, including one in our garden. They are clearly on their way up the Thames. I saw some in Old Windsor in 2018. Maybe they'll reach Cirencester before the decade's out.

And a very skittish egret in our local nature reserve.

The muntjacs in the woods behind our house are getting very brave. I find they quite often stand and stare at you like foxes do. Lockdown may be a contributory factor but I suspect one of my neighbours is giving them carrots.

heron watch #2 - went to a pond where in the summer we'd been pond dipping and caught newts and tadpoles. as i approached. with my 3 year old daughter on the back of my bike, i saw a heron. we stopped and looked at it through some long grass, it saw us and stalked away but only to the edge of the pond. it had something long and black in its mouth but i couldn't make out what it was. we walked slowly closer - i couldn't have been more visible in my red rain jacket, but it didn't fly away. it was maybe ten metres away, on the other side of the pond. whatever it had in its mouth it seemed to be repeatedly dipping into then lifting out of the water. finally i managed to make out, dangling either side of its beak and definitely kicking, the legs and feet of what was almost certainly a frog. a few seconds later it got swallowed.

Mother elk this past summer in Rocky Mountain National Park:

https://i.postimg.cc/4dpRZyCr/Elk.jpg

Nice!

egret in the slough next to where I work (Springfield OR)

two young foxes playing in the moonlight (Trinidad CA)

wild turkey just hanging out in the trees (Trinidad)

absolute cacophony of frog song hereabouts, sheer amphibious pandemonium, good god you never heard such lovesick frogs

That's my favorite harbinger of spring, the night all the peepers start peeping en masse.

it is pretty dang cute 💚🐸💚

tho they also remind me of the "honk if you're horny" tim robinson sketch

the frog orgy has run its course, barring a few lonelyheart holdouts, so last night it was quiet enough to hear a pack of coyotes whooping it up! once i'd made sure they were coyotes and not people howling (omg do you remember the early covid howl-alongs?!) i went out hoping to get a better earful, but no joy. the crickets had a lot to say, though, and there was a recurrent fluttering flutey hoot like that of a screech owl, and creeks trickling silver in the moonlight, etc.

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.