My favourite lifer this week is this beautyful red collembola
..it is funny, because I learned of its existence only few months ago when I thought I had observed one but later realized I was wrong.. and then really wanted to find one.. and now did so on a log I turned which was just 5m away from the first one.. would not have thought it would be so quick and easy 
My best “lifer” for the week is a Timber Rattlesnake! Technically not a lifer since I’ve seen them in the past, but it’s the first live one I’ve been able to photograph for iNat.
Observation here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/282227448
Beautiful! And so close!
It looks a lot like this moss springtail I’ve observed, and it is the only observation of this species in the whole country!
What banding lab do you band at?
And congrats on the lifers!
Thanks! I wasn’t at any specific lab, but there was a table and some nets set up by the lake (marshy region near southeastern Lake Erie). While not technically full lifers, they were the first time I’d seen them, as I had heard both birds before.
Woah, that’s awesome! I’ve lived in the US for the majority of my life and have gone on a good deal of hikes in areas I would image rattlers would be, but I haven’t managed to find any yet.
They’re rather cryptic. I’ve been hiking a local park (Ringwood State Park) for decades and never even knew they were present there until I came across an enormous dead one on a trail one day.
This was a pretty unexpected find for me since we were in a hurry to get our boat out of the harbor and I was just doing a quick look around the dock. I thought this was some kind of crustacean molt until I took a closer look.
I was taking some trash to the nearby recycling dumpsters and I saw the single most goofy looking little creature I’ve ever laid eyes upon. The people of iNat have spoken and apparently they were killdeer. The fact that I noted that it “Looked ridiculous” was apparently the nail in the coffin in identifying it.
Very often they will extend a wing and look injured as they call and run away… trying to lead you away from a nest. The nest is usually a bunch of pebbles and doesn’t look like a nest. Good job!
This native bee https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/282198288
Definitely a Killdeer. I never pass up an opportunity to photograph one, they look so adorably worried and neurotic. Ridiculous also covers it; what else can you say about a wading bird that will nest in a parking lot or on a tarpaper roof?
Another small corybas for the list.
I love killdeer. When I was in middle school, a mother laid eggs on the field. The babies look so amusing
I had a lot of lifers yesterday! My favorite was definitely the Blue-winged Warbler (shown below), but Mourning Warbler, Grasshopper Sparrow, and Black-billed Cuckoo were all nice as well!
Yet another amazing nudibranch lifer!
White-and-orange-tipped nudibranch
