Rough Greensnake catching an orbweaver spider. It got close to the web and then stayed there for what felt like 10 minutes (not sure it was waiting to figure out how to catch the spider or because I had disturbed it). After a while, it finally caught the spider and seemed to have no trouble eating it. My first time seeing a wild snake catch its prey!

This migrating warbler flew over our boat and sat on the water. When we moved closer to it to "rescue" it and bring it onboard it took flight and headed away.

San Diego County, California, US

Cattle Egret
with Barn Swallow it has caught
Dry Tortugas, Florida
1 May 1988

Cattle Egrets are a species known to wander. They made it to the U.S. on their own in the early 1950s and are now a common species all over the Americas. I once found a dead Cattle Egret on a rocky beach in Antarctica. There are no insects on Antarctica, so that particular Cattle Egret just wandered too far. Such might be said for Florida's Dry Tortugas. They are called "dry" for good reason. There is no fresh water. Birds that end up there and are too tired to move on, simply die. It is a daily task of employees at Fort Jefferson to walk around and pick up and discard the Cattle Egret carcasses before they open the fort to the birdwatchers each spring day. On this day my group watched a starving Cattle Egret (there are few large insects for the egrets to feed on) grab a Barn Swallow. It certainly made for a strange scene!

Man root on right, man on left. Found excavated by construction activity, took home to nurture, fed tea, then planted in native garden.

*2021 Update: the transplant didn't take and this sweet soul was lost to the world, buried dead as it had been buried alive.

Roughly 7 generations growing in this spot, all self seeded since I brought three seeds here from the foothills of the Olympic Mountains 15 years ago. Thousands of plants here now. The ground is now covered with pappus hairs from this year’s seeds. As all of these plants are self-seeded it fits the iNaturalist definition of "wild", but I also thought people should know this is not part of a population that has persisted here since before European contact.

This species was on a list I found 21 years ago of those native species that hadn’t been recorded in Seattle in decades when I started studying how to identify them all, and just what habitats they naturally grew in, and looking for where I could find wild seed of the species on that list from sites physically and ecologically close to Seattle, to try planting in the most promising spots here.

I started with the goal of helping the recovery of butterfly species that had become rare in, or had disappeared from, Seattle, and knew thistles to be important as both butterfly nectar, and host (caterpillar food) plants, and had learned that all 4 of Seattle's native thistle species were on that list of our lost species. So I am pleased to see a bit of improved butterfly habitat in this spot where this native thistle is thriving again!

I’ve since spent 15 years weeding this site and controlling the Artichoke Plume Moths https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/319034-Platyptilia-carduidactylus, the best I can, as the mother plants sent their offspring to occupy the growing patch of land vacated by my weeding around them. I also have a significant problem with non-viable seed, more later in the season, than with the initial crop, which I believe is due to predation of the receptacles, where the seeds develop, by Rhinocyllus conicus - the Nodding Thistle Receptacle Weevil https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/229899-Rhinocyllus-conicus .

Looking down from the jetty, a marvelous scene of epic scope! A bajillion soldier crabs moving in groups and waves, with the front of receding water apparently the most prime spot, worth braving the numerous toadfish patrolling the edge and waiting for the right time to lunge forward in the shallows and run away with a crab. Often they wouldn't get the crab-- it was a bit fast for me to see, but looked like the crab would pinch them in the snoot-- and sometimes when they did get a crab the competition from other fish would be so fierce that the crab would get dropped and escape to shore.

"The Art of Mother Nature".

These images represent the brief but beautiful display we get on the first hard freeze of a winter--if we get such a morning at all at our latitude. We've had a few cold mornings just below freezing in Austin over the past few weeks, but this Arctic blast was enough to keep the temperature in the teens and 20's for several hours. The result for Frostweed is frozen sap which splits the base of the stem and comes curling out in fantasticly beautiful "shaved ice" forms. Botanical icicles. The shapes are as diverse as snowflakes.

Clung to the beak of a Whimbrel that was foraging in the seaweed, the bird could not dislodge it, after a couple of minutes the isopod dropped off. The Whimbrel continued to feed with the isopod on board.

Los detalles de este registro están en el libro "Relatos de Fogata". El gato entró en la noche a la casa del Sr. Samuel Covián, en la ranchería Rincón de Luisa. Fui a rescatarlo y, una vez dormido, la familia quiso una foto con él; un macho adulto de 6 kg.

El último de los huevos (no logrado) del grupo en estas observaciones:

The last (failed) egg of the clutch in these observations:

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1814668
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1860809

Ocasionalmente los coyotes forman asociaciones de caza con los tejones. Probablemente el coyote se beneficia de los perros llaneros (se ven 3 al fondo a la izquierda) que huyen mientras el tejón excava, o restos de perros llaneros que arroja el tejón. El tejón probablemente se beneficia de que la presencia de que un coyote que ha aprendido a forrajear con los tejones evite que otros coyotes, que normalmente serían agresivos contra los tejones, se acerquen. En la foto el tejón está siguiendo al coyote, el cual se detenía de cuando en cuando para que lo alcanzara el tejón.

NOTE

There are possibly two collections here. Online references are very ambiguous about which is which, to the extent that they are separate collections from separate parts of Chiapas at all. The two locations I’ve been able to find are

Soconusco, Chiapas, Mexico (http://www2.tap-ecosur.edu.mx/hongos/)

and

Las Cabañas, Cantón Providencia, Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico (article below)

I’m pretty sure the man with the mustache is Rene Andrade. The other two are, for the moment, unknown. I’m posting below what has proven to be the most comprehensive article on these possibly identical, possibly separate Chiapan Macrocybe finds from June 2007, as well as all the images I’ve been able to find of both men with both/the same mushroom(s). All photo credits are tentatively listed as belonging to El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Ecosur):

from http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2007/311305.html:

Hallan hongo gigante en Chiapas

Notimex en San Cristóbal de Las Casas | Academia | Fecha: 11-jul-07

El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Ecosur) reportó el hallazgo de un hongo gigante con diámetro y altura de 70 centímetros en ambas escalas, y 20 kilogramos de peso, lo que lo haría el más grande de su especie encontrado en Chiapas. En un comunicado, la institución reportó que el mes pasado personal del Ecosur halló un hongo gigante en Las Cabañas, Cantón Providencia, municipio de Tapachula, a unos kilómetros de la frontera con Guatemala. Trabajadores de la línea Manejo Integrado de Plagas, que realizaban una práctica de campo en el lugar, fueron informados por pobladores de la región sobre la existencia del hongo gigante. Al acudir y ver sus dimensiones, reportaron el hallazgo al personal de la línea Hongos Tropicales de la misma institución. El curador de la colección micológica del Ecosur, René Andrade, viajó con otras personas al lugar para colectar el hongo, particularmente sobresaliente por su tamaño y su poca frecuencia en México. Según el informe, el hongo pesa más de 20 kilogramos, tiene una altura y diámetro de 70 centímetros en ambos casos. El hongo fue trasladado a la sede del Ecosur en Tapachula para ser estudiado; los especialistas determinaron que se trata de una especie que ya había sido encontrada anteriormente en Chiapas. Agregó al respecto que ya tienen dos ejemplares más de esa especie vegetal, uno de ellos de 50 centímetros de diámetro (colectado en fragmentos). El otro espécimen fresco medía 25 centímetros de diámetro. Su nombre científico es Macrocybe Titans Pegler, Lodge y Nakasone y es sinónimo de Tricholoma cistidiosa Cifuentes y Guzmán. Dicha especie fue reportada como nueva para México en 1981, dentro del Parque Educativo Laguna de Bélgica, municipio de Ocozocuautla, también en Chiapas. De acuerdo con el Ecosur, hay reportes que indican la presencia de este hongo también en áreas de Guatemala, Costa Rica y Brasil. La institución añadió que no hay informes que refieran que la especie encontrada sea comestible o nociva. Aparentemente su función en la naturaleza es reciclar la materia orgánica de la misma forma que los demás organismos de su reino. El hongo gigante pasó a formar parte de la Colección Micológica de Ecosur, la cual está integrada por más de cinco mil ejemplares de hongos de diferentes partes del estado de Chiapas, especialmente del Soconusco. Integra ya también los registros del padrón de colecciones de la Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO). La Colección Micológica del Ecosur, que resalta por su ubicación en una zona tropical húmeda, se mantiene con fines de investigación y de docencia y como un apoyo importante para el conocimiento de la biodiversidad de México.

Dates inferred from time-stamps, though this may only pertain to one of the two collections, provided they are, in fact, distinct.

One of the 2 is fake - guess which one.

Solution for all who are still wondering: The plastic rattle snake has been put in the entrance of the camp kitchen as a deterrent against the local troop of Malbrouck Monkeys, which used to raid the stored food, and surprisingly they never ever entered the kitchen since then.

This skink, however, equipped with astounding cognitive abilities, shows off with his balls of steel.

Err, I think it's a female....

El comportamiento de alimentación de esta ave limícola migratoria es muy interesante , pues voltea o vuelve las rocas o cualquier material que encuentre para alimentarse de los invertebrados debajo de estos, lo que le atribuye su nombre común. Sin embargo, a veces encuentran fácilmente algunos moluscos de los cuales sólo deben abrir el caparazón para alimentarse de ellos. Nota que en la fotografía parece apreciarse una pequeña perla.