Looks like a female woodepecker. Not the brightest bird, had to chase it out of the barn so it didn't get stuck in overnight.
I believe this is a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa). This species is mentioned by name on the iNaturalist Blaberidae page, but neither the species nor the genus is listed in iNaturalist for some reason.
Found rifling around the trash outside the maintenance barn, was able to shimmy out itself after about an hour. Due to the constant influx of people, the park and other developed areas around it have a large population of raccoons and opossums.
They are messy eaters that dig through the trash and are so used to people to the point that I have had opossums stare at me when I catch them going through dumpsters and get right back to eating trash.
Ring-neck duck spotted bathing in the irrigation pond at Northeast Metro Park. Unlike other skittish birds that fly away when I so much as look at them, these ducks stayed pretty stationary right until I went to the lip of the pond.
These irrigation ponds are used to water the fields and have their own little ecosystem, we used to stock the pond with bottom feeding fish but that never worked out. The bugs weren't as bad as they usually were, which explains why there wasn't as much ducks out that day.
Looks like a female woodepecker. Not the brightest bird, had to chase it out of the barn so it didn't get stuck in overnight.
Poor guy probably stumbled in here during the rain, sprayed it with some water and got it out of there. Surprised I don't find more in the barn with the gummy drains and leaky ice machine.
Observations taken from the same 4 square feet of land.
Observations taken from the same 4 square feet of land.
Observations taken from the same 4 square feet of land.
Observations taken from the same 4 square feet of land.
Poison ivy pretty much acts as a border around the trails at the park, if you step off the concrete you probably are gonna get itchy. I'm not about to break out the weedwacker and asphyxiate from an allergic reaction, maybe we can get some goats to take care of it.
Dewberry hasn't fruited yet, but I don't wanna try my luck with how much poison ivy is growing around.
You see cardinals around often in the park. I was playing a cardinal call on my phone off of youtube but it ignored me, I guess it could tell that it was fake.
This one was up on top of an electric pole, I had to climb on top of the work trucks to take this one. I got a weird look from a visitor.
Found this one near the wood refuse pile. These plants used to be a problem last year in the park, they'd drown out the other wildflowers but we made sure to take care of them ahead of time.
These plants only grow in the shadiest areas of the park.
There wasn't a whole lot of these flowers blooming this year in the park.
I had to go out of my way to find this plant. Thistle is a rare find in the park, which is weird for a weed.
I don't really know what kind of beetle these guys are but I think they are longhorns because of their long antennae. Observations taken from the same 4 square feet of land.
Wasn't as aggressive as I thought it would be. The more I look around the more I find. We keep pvc pipes around for irrigation in a little covered shed but it's been wasp central for a good while.