Nope those were pre-iNat days. Sorry. :)
Not rare since it is a specific part of their life cycles but seeing parisitoid wasp take downs I find amazing. Although there are many species of the wasps around I have only seen a couple takedowns. Once when I was in a forest doing some DBH measurements of forestry pines, I saw a spider (not sure which sort, some sort of orb weaver) and decided to take a closer look since I love spiders. A few seconds later something struck it fast and they both fell to the ground. I looked to the ground and the spider and wasp was rolling on the ground. Of course it was only a matter of time before the spider stopped fighting and the wasp flew off with it. I wish I was more aware of things at the time to be able to ID either one, but it all happened pretty quick and I didnt get any pics. Sure its entirely normal behaviour, but it was awesome to watch.
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Hooded/Carrion Crow interspecies preening and courtship. So cute!
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While on a holiday on Islay we saw a Hooded Crow harassing a Peregrine. This went on for a little while, before the Peregrine whipped around like lightning and slammed into the crow. The two hit the ground hard. The crow didnāt get up. Sadly we had to drive on to avoid disturbing the Peregrine (it was looking at us like āDo you mind?ā) so no idea what happened to the crow!
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A small ladybug Propylea quatuordecimpunctata attempting to copulate with Harmonia axyridis which is several times bigger:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/25640602
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i saw multiple ants cooperating to drag a huge dead worm straight up the bark of an old tree.
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I completely forgot about the time a red tailed hawk dropped a rattlesnake on my birdwatching group in undergrad. We were in a prairie area with tall grass and startled the hawk, and it dropped the snake as it flew off, presumably to lighten the load. Lucky for us the snake was dead x_x
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Found a pair of 13-spotted lady beetles walking around - and under - a nursery web spider:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11446904
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I donāt have any pictures as this happened in the early 70s, decades ago. We visited the pier in Santa Cruz. We saw a seal awkwardly pushing and towing another seal that seemed unconscious towards Seal Rock on the other side of the pier. It was a longish distance back to the colony on the rock. We were just in awe to see that kind of effort and rescue behavior among seals.
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New to the forum and not sure if this is the best for my question/comment butā¦a squirrel stash a black walnut in a Robinās nestā¦also wondering if anyone else is aware of squirrels using bird nests for their larder? This was new to me
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Thank you!
Housewarming present?
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Was it on the ground or on the tree?
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From 2010 to 2016 I participated in a volunteer raptor nest survey for one of the local park systems in Northeast Ohio. Watching pairs of hawks go from building a nest, sitting on eggs, and feeding young on and off the nest was really a wonderful experience.
Some hawks are comfortable with you there. Some will make lots of noise no matter how far away you viewed the nest (even with a spotting scope). The Cooperās hawks were generally very tolerant and often curious. Males would sometimes fly over to where I was standing and calmly perch above me. Red-tailed hawks were nervous no matter what. I had to sneak up through the woods hiding behind trees until I reached a spot where I could see a nest. I would only stay a short time. I felt good if the hawks didnāt see me.
I also got to watch a few broad-winged hawk nests, one screech owl nest cavity and one barred owl nest cavity.
There usually isnāt much going on with an owl cavity until the young come out. But, one day when I went to the big dead tree where the barred owls were nesting I saw the male fly across a small ravine into an area where there were piliated woodpeckers nesting. The woodpeckers went after the owl. They flared up their feathers and made a lot of noise. The owl left quickly.
There was more than just the nesting raptors to observe during that time. When you are visiting a certain area in a park once or twice a week, you get to know the ālocalsā.
At one parking lot there was a scarlet tanager singing in a tree nearby in the morning when I would get there.
At another nest deep in the woods, I would often see a coyote come up from a valley. If I was somewhat hidden from its view, I would step out so that it could see me at a distance. It gradually got used to me. At the end of the summer, one day it came up out of the valley with its mate and a pup. The mate and the pup ran off when they saw me. The other adult sat down, scratched behind its ear and then trotted off after its family.
One spring we had day after day of rain. There were tons of mushrooms all over the woods that spring and early summertime. I bought a guidebook and sent the local naturalists a lot of mushroom photos that year.
The website, Nestwatch.org, by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology dedicated to watching bird nests. There are explanations about how to go about properly monitoring a nest on the site. You can enter your observations there so that researchers can use your data for studies.
With hawks it can take a couple of weeks to build/add to a nest and mate. Then, it may take around a month to incubate the eggs. Then, it can take about a month before the last fledgling leaves the area.
I have never watched a smaller songbird nest. Their nesting cycles are a lot shorter than the large hawks.
If you visit a website like Audubon or the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and look at the information on individual bird species, you can see the length of these nesting cycles. I would bet the Nestwatch.org website has the information, too.
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A striped skunk accompanying a raccoon. When the raccoon spilled trash cans, the skunk got a meal, too.
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Iāve seen these wasps dragging wolf spiders quite a few times myself.
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Not terribly unusual considering how parasitic cowbirds can be, but I watched a dark-eyed junco raise a baby cowbird. She seemed ~so~ proud of her great big baby!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/51385121
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