The first photo is the cercaria stage shed from a planorbid snail collected from a pond at Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park. The second photo shows an infected Pseudacris sierra from the same pond.
This is a Common Black Hawk x California Red-shouldered Hawk. Not sure how to get this as the ID.
Known offspring of the Common Blackhawk that lived here for 15 years.
On Quercus stellata. Not positive gall wasp but best place to start
Leucistic? The pigment in the ocular orbitals is making me hesitate on saying albino
Red-winged Blackbird
near Stewardson, Illinois
1 June 1989
I'm posting this record just for the general interest of a Red-winged Blackbird with one white wing. Whether a partial albino, or a partial leucistic bird, I'm not sure. A local farmer told my wife and me that this bird had been on his farm for three summers. The bird left in the fall with the other Red-wingeds and came back in the spring. I watched it for about 30 minutes. It vocalized like any other Red-winged BB and interacted with other Red-wingeds normally. It was pretty flashy to see in flight, however. Three shots posted. These images scanned from old color slides.
Picture Gary Emich
In the peak of the top end dry season. A mantis crashed into the spotlight of my parked vehicle and fell on the ground, stunned. The katydid immediately arrived and began eating it. This is a dried up creek bed and the nearby vegetation is extremely dry - perhaps the katydid desperately needed the moisture. Bowerbird.org.au sighting being moved to iNaturalist as the former website is shutting down.
With mantis as prey!
I'm pretty sure a hybrid but I'm not positive which two. I believe all four are now in this waterway. I was thinking M. chrysops x americana or M. chrysops x mississippiensis but I haven't been able to find any photos of these crosses for comparison.