European Peacock Butterfly (Aglais io)
I heard a bird a month ago which was identified less than two days ago as a white-eyed vireo. This is my second vireo; the first was red-eyed.
I’ve observed some things that may turn out to be lifers, but they haven’t been identified yet. I made three observations yesterday, one of which may be a lifer, but I just got them from the camera and haven’t uploaded them yet.
I’m pretty new to birding so my favourite lifer this week is the Long-tailed tit.
I’m still desperate to see a Skylark and a Lapwing!
Long-tailed Tits are among the cutest birds ever invented. Congratulations!
There was a gray whale that washed up on our local beach this past week. The carcass had been carved up into sizable pieces by the time I got there, but I wasn’t too late to see some of the hitchhiking barnacles.
Other users got observations from the same whale of parasitic whale lice, which I looked for but sadly didn’t see.
Technically, the whale itself was a lifer since I’ve never seen a gray whale before, but there wasn’t much of it to see.
These odd little midges scavenging a harvestman. These were identified to species by an expert on BugGuide. There have been only a couple of records on either BugGuide or iNaturalist, at least records where they have been identified. They have a wide distribution, having been reported from North America, the Neotropical region, and parts of tropical Asia. The species was first described from New York state. They are known to feed on spider prey caught in webs–kleptoparasitism. Body length about 1.5 mm. Such oddities in terms of range, lifestyle, and coloration.
I’ve finished posting my observations from my recent ten-day trip. While I had some nice insect and plant lifers (and even a not-so-terrible photo of a lifer bird), I rarely get to recognize a reptile among my lifers.
Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) harvested nearly to extinction, a century ago, to satisfy a taste for turtle soup. And now the official state reptile of Maryland.
I’m not sure if this is the best thing I have seen this week, or the best thing I have ever seen. I was completely overwhelmed by these fly corpses infected with Entomophthora musci complex on horse dung: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/378449118
I have been looking for this for a very long time!
I’ve been learning Odonata for a few years now and hoping to spot a Smoky Rubyspot for ages, finally found one on Sunday. (obs)
Kleptoparasitism… that’s a new one. I can always count on the iNat forum to rock my world.
How about kleptoplasty? That’s another fun one. :)
And you found one of the unusual males with solidly dark wings - nifty!
Not really a lifer and not from this week, but I was digging through my express card before I deleted everything and found what I think is an leucistic eastern Fox squirrel.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/379363191
There’s a project for that! (I am betting there are actually many, but this is the one with which I am familiar.)
It’s peak summer in Europe AND I have some time at my hands at the moment, to explore with my camera, which is a first for me since I joined iNat. So my species count is steadily going up right now - a lot of (what I call) iNat-lifers for me.. species I might have seen before, but do not have photo evidence of.
But I am especially happy that there are a lot of real lifers for me as well. Turns out, there seems to be an ecological relevant “border” between where I live now and where I have been raised some 170km north, let alone the faaaar North at the baltic Sea where I spent a decade of getting interested in iNatting before knowing iNat.
I am always very happy when I see cuckoo wasps, as they are such beautyful little gems. I am even more happy, when I get some half decent photos as well. And what a joy when they even can go to species level
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/379329094
I also added a bunch of new lepidoptera to my list, like this beautyful Lesser Marbled Fritillary
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/379346588
Indeed I have 7 observations of those now, as they seem to be so common here. But although I love butterflies, some of them look all the same to me, especially those fritilaries. So I take the shot everytime, just in case they are maybe not all the same… and indeed, I found two other new to me species in the bunch in the past week, I did not even realize at the time 
The drive-through at this one Walgreens broke down, as they occasionally do, and was duly repaired.
2 hours and 41 minutes* after it reopened, a car caught on fire right there, and it was closed again, this time for months. (Curse you, Walgreens, for making me feel sorry for a Walgreens!!!)
Last month it was open again in theory, but the phones were down.
Today, at last, I actually used the drive through. And then I looked up. Apparently they have a new supervisor.
…is there a project that’s the opposite of “Cursed Nature”? 
*I asked.
I got a real rarity of a lifer in my moth box this morning. I thought it was a Common Emerald, but Computer Vision suggested that it might be something else. It turns out it’s the rare, red-listed, Sussex Emerald. A moth named after the county of Sussex which is only usually found in the county of… err, Kent. Well, today Essex got one.
I found these caddisflies (maybe?) infected with a fungus this week.
Also this Broad-winged Skipper (I think) from a bird hike this morning.
And this wasp, Setanta compta, which doesn’t even have a common name. If I’m correct, this is the first iNat record for my county.
I didn’t know this was a lifer at the time, but now I do - and it’s apparently a first record of this species for iNaturalist.
