At my light sheet back in 2013 I got a clearwing borer moth (Sesiidae) that I couldn’t identify so I posted it on BugGuide… turned out it was quite a rare species, Synanthedon richardsi, that had only been reported one time since it’s description in 1938. Dr. W.H. Taft, Jr., a sesiid expert, identified it and ultimately published my photos in the News of the Lepidopterists’ Society. Very exciting for an amateur moth enthusiast! A couple of others have turned up since (and some much better photos have been taken) but it’s still quite rare… my 15 minutes of entomological fame. And this was about 3 feet outside my back door! I put the photos on iNat, too, of course.
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That’s great!
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Вроде пишут, что на них, как и на кротов, ультразвуковые отпугиватели работают хорошо.
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That’s a great story! Thank you for sharing it. I love the idea of finding something very rare in your own backyard.
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I haven’t wanted to chime in because I feel a little bad bragging. I would estimate over 80% of my total iNat observations are from my home. So far just this year, I have about 57 species of birds seen at or above my house. So I’ll start there. Highlights/ best finds for me for a variety of reasons include: my year-round, deck-roosting, meal worm-eating entertainment machines (Carolina Wrens), very rare visitor Western tanager at my suet, Woodcock show-offs, two cuckoos other than the one currently writing this, a woodpecker six-pack in which I’m partial to the pileated (though I’m betting red-headeds will expand their range to this swamp imminently as they’ve been moving slowly this way), sandhill cranes, most fun, loud and brave buteo (broad-winged hawk), Great-crested flycatchers are fun to impersonate as are the yellow-throated vireos and baltimore orioles, Belted kingfishers, green & blue herons, wood ducks and hooded mergs round out the birdiest home favorites water-side. Although, I won’t look away from a kingbird gathering nest material from my planters and I won’t slam my window shut on the singing of a wood thrush or lousiana waterthrush or blackburnian or brown creepers or…yeah I’m bad at picking favorites. I will still be complaining that I haven’t heard a screech owl though even as I listen like a spoiled child to great horned or barred owls hoot away.
Arthropoda: My salticid friends who hang out on, around, and sometimes in the house especially talavera minuta and eris militaris, Micrathena, so far well over 300 lepidoptera species with a beautiful invasive micro included (Suzuki’s promalactis), but I really dig the antics of hemaris, and both virginia creeper sphinx and clearwing are fun to look at it, as was the juniper hairstreak and the indigo duskywing, I just found a defunct polyphemus pupa so I’m hoping to see an adult this year by hanging a sheet in the woods rather than my front door. Blatchley’s walkingstick and an obscene number of tenodera sinsensis are my favorite hyper-local large insects followed by northeastern and white-spotted pine sawyers and other cerambycids (apparently I have 10 species? so far) plus I just found their live gargantuan larvae in one tree, I really dig pine tree crickets but all the oecanthus species I have are neat, and I am a big fan of chortophaga and meadow katydids too! Are you fatigued and frustrated by this stream of consciousness whiplash, my switching between latin and common names and my rude disregard for capitalizations yet? Welcome to my brain, Sorry! I’m tired! Are you still reading? Great!
now best finds from other classes and orders because I got lazy breaking them down : Marbled salamander, wandering broadhead planarian, (I guess I went slimy first?), American toads (because of the sound effects), peepers and green frogs, my two basement snakes: garter and rat and their sometimes friend northern racer share an occasional/ seasonal refugia/hibernacula in my basement and sometimes wrap themselves around my chair or deck, a huuuuuge dinosaur knocked on my front door,(I may have posted that and maybe all of this somewhere on the forum previously?), the beavers are fun to watch when they’re socializing or being territorial, crawfish I get to see when they’re being thwacked to death by kingfishers and mergs, black bears, very very very loud coyotes, eastern cottontails, virginia opposum and several mustelids round out the rest of the mammalia faves.
Oi vey. Spoiled brat. Of course, I’m jealous because I have yet to see a bobcat at home and there’s no sharp-tailed snakes here. Kidding aside, I know how lucky I am but I also know that I probably pay more attention and have more free time than your average bear.
Thanks for reading. Please don’t shame me for writing so much or having so many wren observations. iNat says that’s okay. :)
I should say…I really am horrible at choosing and “top 5” type things… these are all best finds to me!
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Wow, that’s impressive!
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Worth bragging about!
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Recently it rained and I saw this toad right along the side of my house. I rarely ever see amphibians so I was excited and stayed very still not to spook the lil dude.
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I have recently discovered that our property is bit of an insect hotspot, which I guess isn’t the sort of thing everybody would see as great but which I feel comfortable sharing on iNat. I have been teaching myself and have been pretty happy with a few things I’ve found, not all of which I have managed to photograph,but the highlight was discovering a male European wool carder bee on a territory in our herb/flower garden. I was watching him chase pollinators off his territory trying to get images when a female dropped by. These guys aren’t what you’d call romantic. There were no preliminaries and it was over quickly but I got a couple of almost in focus images from head on. Not quite National Geographic but I’m happy.
EDITED TO ADD: https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/81622588/original.jpeg?1593450927
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I’m lucky that although I live in a suburban area, the former industrial sites nearby have become a variety of habitats, grassland and woodland and lake, all within walking distance, but I have also been observing in my house and garden. This Heterotoma planicornis (a plant bug) was in my bathroom a week ago, and is the first to turn up in the Never Home Alone project, that records sightings in the home. I got a Campyloneura virgula (another plant bug) on the cherry tree in the garden a fortnight ago. It’s in my nature to find the most obscure and tiny things most interesting (I started out in lichens), and it really seems the season for plant bugs right now.
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I regularly have a great spotted woodpecker visiting the bird feeders. She’s pretty cool.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/46260633
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Very cool birds.
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I only have a small patio as I live in a condo in a pretty suburban area (there is a creek not too, too far away). It’s well fenced, so I was quite surprised to find a little skunk foraging for snails and slugs. It’s spent a day or two eating up all those treats, and then got it self out under the fence again somehow.
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Your post reminded me of this visitor: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/51869866
She and her mate come to our suet feeders in winter, but usually the one 7 or 8 metres from the house. She was right at home in the garden next to the dining room window, scaring our cats. Thanks for inspiring me to find it and post it.
If you ever post something to iNaturalist from Meisenheim, please be so kind as to tag me. Especially if it’s a Meise.
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I have a lot of wildlife in my yard: both Red and Gray foxes, a bobcat, deer, etc. But this spring, I had a Lazuli Bunting hanging around. An unusual sighting here because he was some 300 miles east of his normal migration route. Rare to see one this far east,
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In my Hong Kong residence, coolest thing that popped up in my mind was this peregrine falcon sitting just outside my bedroom window several years back: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7589486
Just the act of seeing the world’s fastest animal with my own eyes is worthy of remembrance.
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We dont have a lot of diversity in my area. Just your usual butterflies, ladybugs and other insects and occasional local birds. But Im still happy seeing them because it means that my garden is alive and healthy.
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I found several life first insects in my balcony, including Exocentrus lusitanus. Turdus pilaris nested in a linden in front of my window and annoyed me a lot during half of the summer – its calls are far from pleasant. A pair of goldfinches nests in the inner yard of my apartment block. But the most stunning finds are from the wall of my workplace – I hope to collect all moths known in Lithuania from it and some other insects as well. Though most unexpected find was from a little pond by my workplace – I found a busy kingfisher there one day.
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In Lismore, NSW AU…Cacophis krefftii Krefft’s Dwarf Snake, in my yard and basement.
Haven’t seen one for a while now, though plenty of habitat remains.
I have only seen them on very warm summer nights.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/52339492
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I found an insect called Colliurus pensylvanica, which was the first record for the nearest 100 miles around.
I found an extremely rare fern, Japanese Painted Fern, which had not been reported in my county ever, and is extremely rare here
Escaped plant in my backyard that had not been reported ever in my county, and is so rare here it is almost never heard of.(Solomon’s Seal)
And to top it off, before I started Inaturalist, there was a raccoon stuck in my chimney!
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