For a minute I thought it was a red wolf!
1 Like
Not a super impressive photo, but bird species #300 for me. Definitely an Easter I will never forget.
Red-necked Grebe - Sunday Apr 20, 2025
16 Likes
Wow!!
5 Likes
I saw this new-to-me genus of beetle, Temnoscheila. It was already dead and being conveyed by yellow crazy ants, which can be pretty aggressive, but I slowly managed to get it away so I could take it inside for more photos.
It’s hard to see in that photo but it is a green metallic and its chewing part is really impressive. I am hopeful one of the Identifiers will be able to take it to species (there are three or so here) (species, not Identifers).
14 Likes
Congratulations! One of my favorite things is managing to get a photo of a monumental lifer!
2 Likes
14 Likes
Thank you! :)
2 Likes
On Thursday last week I went to many places inland in the woods and saw my first White-Bellied Emerald, which is a type of hummingbird. It could only be confused with a classical Ruby-Throated Hummingbird which is in season now (many trees in the woods lose all their leaves and are now flowering intensely this season, and most of these trees have at least one ruby throat. They are getting fat for spring migration), but what this new hummer was doing was key for identification (it was not in good lighting). The bird was picking spiderwebs, which means it is collecting nesting material. Ruby throats don’t nest here.
I also saw some Ageratum gaumeri, a humble endemic wildflower which I can now say I have seen.
And in a Mayan backyard they were keeping stingless bees but there was quite a diversity of bees in here. They very likely collected the colonies directly from the wild. Among them there was a kind of bee I have never seen before and have not identified at all. The entrance (the bees build entrances to their own hives made of mud, wax, and resin) was so unique and complex, and the bees were extremely small, their heads were like pinheads and I am being quite accurate. I was just fascinated.
Oh, I forgot to mention I could have seen an Ornate Hawk-Eagle but it was by the road, so it was very far away and very quickly. I am not 100% sure, but if I really did, that would be insane.
8 Likes
“Fresh” from my moth-walk last night: Hadena confusa, with an easy to recognise pattern, not at all confusing ;-)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/272319324
Which is species #70 for this year - not bad for just walking
17 Likes
Saw an organism with lots of legs crawling up the bedroom wall.
Did not shriek “Eeek! a creepy-crawly! Get it away, quick!”
Did coo “Oooh! I hope that’s a centipede! Grab my phone, quick!”
My first centipede.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/272198525
13 Likes
You know you’re seriously into iNat when…
you bust out in rhyme over a centipede on your bedroom wall… you know that makes others skin crawl…
7 Likes
I’m sure I’ve seen them before, but I got my first photos and good looks at Townsend’s Chipmunks this morning!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/272469220
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/272469342
18 Likes
I am visiting Cocos Island, Costa Rica, and had the chance to hike to the summit of Cerro Iglesias through the lowest elevation cloud forest in the world. Lots of lifers but o got the chance to photograph this one-in-a-million leucistic Cocos Island Finch, an endemic species and the most isolated of Darwin’s finches. Truly an experience that I will not forget.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/272566763
Even wilder is that I got exactly one shot at the bird before it flew away.
26 Likes
And what an awesome shot it is! Congratulations!
7 Likes
Amazing find and congrats!
3 Likes
Went looking for dragonflies this afternoon and randomly decided to turn a log by a stream, and found this mud salamander. Completely unexpected lifer for me, one of only five inat records in the state. Been to this place many times and only found the common salamander species for the area before
21 Likes
Corokia buddleioides
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/273607696
Melicytus micranthus
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/410293-Melicytus-micranthus
5 Likes
My favorite from this week was this willow dart moth, but I got a few other cool lifers too
My first crablike rove beetle and another rove beetle which I ID’d as Deinopteroloma subcostatum, a species with only two other obs in my state but the best match I could find.
8 Likes
My fav is either the sri lankan frogmouths I saw. last night, or the Jerdon’s nightjars I saw today.
Frogmouths
Nightjars.
15 Likes
Had you ever seen other frogmouths or nightjars before?
3 Likes