Oh dang. This was yesterday… ok I’ll wait for next week.
I just saw the most beautifully sparkled insect I’ve ever seen…
Please don’t wait.
Yeah, ok. Chances are pretty good I might forget by then!
Check out this beauty!
This is a Striated Jewel Beetle.
Broad-billed Sandpiper (Calidris falcinellus) from the middle of Siberia. It was quite surprised to see them here, because the nearest observation was in about 600km eastern. Also, I’ve noticed the bird only when I filtered photos at home, and was quite sad found that I missed two Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea) in large flock of different sandpipers.
Also, the photo itself is memetic. Dunlins (Calidris alpina) shows “We are not with him”, Curlew sandpipers shows “Hey, what are you?” and “friends who always ready to crash the photo”. And Broad-billed Sandpiper shows “What the … I’m doing here?”
I observed and learned a little about Texas Ironclad Beetle. He was in my barn and his “ironclad” exoskeleton protected him from the pesticide barrier that is liberally applied to the cement foundation inside the barn (please don’t hate on me, I don’t want to share my indoor space with scorpions).
Anyway, I scooped him up, using a rigid fly swatter like a spatula, and put him back outdoors where he belongs. I got him ID’d here then learned that the military has studied his exoskeleton to try to design IED-proof vehicles! I’ve probably wandered past these things all my life out in nature, but I had never actually seen or heard of this little booger before I took this photo.
Where was that? In the US?
Yes. I’m in west/central Michigan (lower peninsula ) in a mixed forest.
Painted trillium - Orono Bog Walk.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/284930531
Some kind of dung beetle
Surprisingly a lifer, I pass by it twice a week: a black nightshade
I have about five identified to species, took this just to increase my number of species in a project (hence the not-bothered-in-prettiness picture), ended with a subspecies of galah lifer
I got my first Marbled Murrelets a few days ago and managed to take some bad digiscope photos.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/284822874
These unusual moths from Costa Rica. The first is in the genus Struthoscelis, I think, and is the first iNat sighting of the genus in North America. There is a paper on the genus on CR but it is hidden behind a paywall.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/285205095
The second is a tiny moth that looks much like the space shuttle. I do not know what it is. Maybe Pyralidae?
Inspired by the recent thread on Cactus photos for Wikipedia, I went to a location near Greenville where I had previously seen prickly pears, hoping to find them in flower. Shortly after uploading, they were identified as the southeastern prickly pear, part of the eastern prickly pear complex. I seem to have just missed the flowering season; there were a few dried-up flowers, but mostly green fruits. But instead, I found these really spectacular insects:
Link to observation: Cactus Coreid Bug (Chelinidea vittiger). There were so many of these that I think they are the reason the pads look yellowish instead of a healthy green.
As far as I know, all of the native cactuses in the eastern states are Opuntia, as is the one cactus species found in Canada.
I got a jumping spider lifer this week!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/284416591
I had been walking down by the Anchor river and was flipping over some logs laying in the grass which usually have very interesting little arthropods under them (I found about two dozen Sabaconid harvestmen under one on the same day). This little spider had been hiding under a flat piece of bark until I discovered it. Jumping spiders are very elusive around my area and it was a big surprise to find one, especially one this cute!
Come to think of it, this is only the second jumping spider I’ve seen in my area my whole life.
Egrets. I’ve had… not even a few!
I’ve seen enough egrets. But never when I have my birding camera around. Until… yesterday!
There it was, a Great Egret, on the shore of my daily walk’s neighbourhood creek, minutes from my home.
The curse of the photo-shy egret is finally lifted!
Hello. Wonderful photo. Thank you so much for your contribution.
I’ve already uploaded it to Wikipedia so it can be used. If you click the link, you’ll see your authorship and a link to your profile.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chelinidea_vittiger_1.jpeg
Thanks so much for your contribution :)
Two days ago, I saw my first Hogfish (this is such a delicious tasting fish), and in Isla Mujeres, my first seahare, my first Bat Fish, and my first Brown Noddy, this brown pelagic tern that nests on islands. It is usual to see Sooty Terns very abundantly when in season in the island, (at least by the Northeastern tip of the island where I like to be and is where I have spent the most of the time in the island), coming from their colonies and flying over me to go to the open sea to fish. But although Brown Noddies are supposedly abundant there, I had never seen one.
Looks like one adult and a bunch of older nymphs. Nice!
(It’s now RG; I annotated for alive and organism, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to annotate life stage for nymph or adult, so I left that for you.)
This white Scarlet Pimpernel: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/286496690