Two-for-one sale!
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I found these charming little bees (Halictus confusus – unconfirmed), busy among these lovely patches of Micranthes virginiensis (unconfirmed) blooming atop the moss-encrusted boulders atop the Niagara Escarpment this week. Both lifers, so… two-for-one!
Halictus confusus obs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/159762628
Micranthes virginiensis obs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/159951201
So… I was delighted to find a new beetle just as the weather is going to warm up finally! Small but pretty!
The Eurasian Red-and-black Melyrid
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/320043-Anthocomus-equestris
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/159943836
Last Sunday, I went hiking near Portland and I was happy to find 3 blooming species of Plantaginaceae in the tribe that includes Penstemon. 2 Collinsia, 1 Tonella, 1 Penstemon, and 1 Nothochelone all lifers; the latter two not in bloom yet.
Yesterday was a public holiday here in Denmark. Wife and kids off to the Netherlands I went across the Sound for a walk along the former border instead. Lots of nice wildlife including a couple of black grouse that would have won my lifer challenge most weeks. However, it got upstaged (as these guys, wonderful though they are, invariably will) by a western capercaillie. Even this didn’t take the prize, though, not for the week, nor for the day.
One of four.
This year’s CNC has been amazing for me in terms of new lifers (I made an earlier post for this CNC a little further up this thread about the chameleon and centipede). Aside from plants and arthropods, I also got some new fungi and vertebrates, such as Little Swift, a Banded Stream Frog (call only), and a vagrant bird species (details below) which I count myself lucky and fortunate to have captured!
Saw a very cool tiger beetle:
Gorgeous tiny little red mushroom:
Little Swift:
My favourite of the CNC so far - the Narina Trogon!
A couple of days before, on the Telegram rare birds group I am in, word got out that an individual of this species was sighted in the nature reserve, with a location pin attached.
Since I wanted to close off the CNC with a cool find like this, I set off in the afternoon (had gone on a hike earlier that day with family in another area) and met up with a group of fellow birders also looking for it. Apparently the bird had been seen earlier in the day in the same general area as the pin by hikers (not birders / twitchers).
We spent about two hours searching for the damn thing, which was hiding in very thick vegetation with tall trees. Towards the end, I had been thinking that this would be a fruitless endeavour like I had experienced before with other rare bird vagrants (like that Eurasian Golden Oriole in December last year which I never got to see, sigh …)
As it was late in the afternoon and getting darker and darker in the forest, soon it would be impossible to see anything. Some of the other birders had already decided to leave. I took my first steps back down the path to go home when the last guy and I saw something flutter onto a branch overhead. We immediately recognised it as what we had been searching for - I was overjoyed!
Spotted Sandpipers! I saw one yesterday, and today I had a whole group hang out with me :)
and a Shining Dark Twig Ant! That makes two kinds of Twig Ants now that I’ve seen. I need more insect observations and this was a good addition I think.
This one wasn’t observed this week, but it was both submitted and identified today.
Bronze Ground Beetle (Carabus nemoralis)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/160370231
After a long time I had an orchid lifer again on Saturday. And also its hybrid.
The left picture is my lifer, Neotinea tridentata. It was growing on top of a hill, however there also was Neotinea ustulata (right) at the bottom of the hill, which I had seen before. But walking down the hill in about the middle there was the hybrid of the two and it was soooo pretty 
My favorite orchid(-hybrid) now!
(Incidentally - the way these things always go - I found a third lifer orchid on the same day. And not just that, it’s also the inat-country-first Orchis anthropophora for Austria. It would have been my favorite for the week but I mistook it for a common species in the field and only took a few quick blurry snaps so would have nothing to post about it since it’s too far away to go back.)
Turns out it is Aquarius paludum paludum and my observation is only one of two records in the UK. Super happy.
Yesterday in Córdoba (Andalusia) a black-crowned night heron
Those moths are amazing, Marina!
Not technically a lifer as I found wings from a dead one once, but first if lifers should be, actually, alive!
Just a young adult, literally kept eye on it over almost 2 hours watching it’s wings unfurl :)
I spotted an adorable little beetle hitching a ride on me yesterday. It’s like a piece of dirt with legs but there’s something endearing about it. I like this little guy!
A walk in the park netted me 5+ species that were new to me plus a couple more I’d never photographed before… including this massive common snapping turtle!
This whit-ish moth on my front porch. Remarkably, it’s the first iNat record, despite a plethora of other sightings. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/160859388
A dead fly still looking good, first for iNat and all gbif records are really far from here! Also lots of new beetles and stuff.
such pretty photos! I will have to look out for nursery spider nests at my pond!
OHMIGOSH youre right! It’s so cute <3<3<3
You did a great job taking the photos!
If you’ve looked through my bird observations, you will have noticed that thay are mostly either fairly large and/or habituated, or photographed through a window. So, unsurprisingly, no picture of my favorite lifer for this week, the Cape May Warbler, for which I specifically traveled to Cape May. No matter: the checklist in my Peterson Guide now has several new check marks besides that one.
Of the ones for which I did get pictures, it is no contest, this bright red slime mold:
