VERY cute.
I’m visiting family in Sydney for the first time since the pandemic began. I found this enormous mosquito, apparently Toxorhynchites speciosus, on my parents’ Eucalypts.
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This week is kind-of starting early, but since my last lifer didn’t really qualify, I am posting this amazing male Rose-breasted Grosbeak. I am not much of a birder and had to look it up to ID it. It perched very near my window, which is right where I sit at my desktop computer. I was amazed:
The image was shot through the fly screen, so it is not ideal, but it’s certainly clear enough to ID.
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It’s gorgeous 
. Did it sing for you?
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I’m amazed that I can still find a new species virtually every time I take my camera outside.
Yesterday my partner and I went on more adventurous expedition, a drive to a mountaintop about an hour away from us, and I found 6 new lifers! Plus a few more that will probably be lifers if I can ever figure out what they were :)
Most of them were not in bloom yet, so not the most spectacular specimens, but I’m just happy to have found them. Here are the taxa:
Serpentine Milkweed (Asclepias solanoana)
Phlox-leaved Bedstraw (Galium andrewsii)
Pink Spineflower (Chorizanthe membranacea)
Flame Ragwort (Packera greenei)
Snapdragon Skullcap (Scutellaria antirrhinoides)
Socrates Mine Jewelflower (Streptanthus brachiatus)
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No singing this time, but this species sure can get by on looks alone!
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Long-footed Lizard, Acanthodactylus longipes, coming to hide under my vehicle beside a sand dune.
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Okay I know it’s Sunday and the week has only just gotten started but it’s going to take something truly remarkable to top this absolute mammoth of a mushroom!
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Good species for your fairytale list!
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It’s on there already! Nice to finally observe something from it.
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I was going to say just that!
What on Earth??! Can you sit on it?
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I’m not sure if it would be sturdy enough. This one would certainly have been large enough to fit me though!
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You should try the next time hehehehehehe!
In fact the snail kite was my lifer some months ago.
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This Tarache moth lifer was part of an eventful night under the lights that has pushed my yard list over 400 arthropods and 70 Leps.
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I know my last post was less then a week ago but I hope we can all agree to let this one slide because I have to share this one. I’ve recently fallen in love with prominent moths through ID’ing so you can image my excitement when this little darling showed up to my light. Just look at that face!
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It looks like a plushie.
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My new week started early again. Yesterday afternoon I was searching the pocket parks in the Sutton Place area of the Upper East Side, and to my amazement I found a flowering plant of Shining Crane’s-Bill, an entirely new lifer for me. The plant was up high above the more northern ramped entrance of the park, outside the fence next to the sidewalk. Happy Birthday me for today:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/117916282
These days I hardly ever find a flowering plant lifer. Cool.
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