Walking inside Walmart
Possibly a hybrid?
Appeared in my laundry. No sign of parents. Shoed them outside so parents can find them. Making a heck of a racket. Then resting. Don’t seem to be scared of me
2023/11/13 Observed 2 male Wood ducks here for the first time. Still no female.
Loots found while weeding the garden, small nymphs were also found.
The new lawn ornaments have arrived.
Red/Bronze color morph - interesting
Besties
Best friends always have a lot to talk about.
Magpie-Muscovy hybrid duck (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus x cairina moschata domestica)
Photo 2:
Walk & Talk
This cracked me up. Exactly like my birding buddy and me when we are out in the field. Frequently we get to talking and forget we are supposed to be quiet and look for wildlife.
This appears to be a drake "Mexican" Mallard which is a form commonly encountered in this region.
Possible Mexican duck or hybrid?
Saw this slightly unusual duck with the Scaup flock yesterday - presumably a molting Greater Scaup - but showing signs of both male and female characteristics? A hybrid? Probably not a tufted duck - head shape seems wrong. Or am I just way off base with how weird this duck looked to me?
These were in a small pond created by a debris flow from a side canyon into the Mojave River-bed.
Pacific Forestry Centre insectary specimens for reference purposes only. Dates and locations of specimens variable, from Victoria, BC, 1960s to 1993.
From @cratzlaff "A. obliterata was released originally around Victoria in the late 60's as a biocontrol test for balsam woolly adelgids and then was recovered in the late 80's and 90's by Lee Humble at the Pacific Forestry Centre. He collected a lot of specimens and they were deposited at the PFC and the Canadian National Collection."
Individuals have recently been observed on iNat in the area, so the population appears to have persisted.
Reference papers:
Harris, Holmes, & Dawson, 1968. "Balsam woolly aphid predator studies, British Columbia, 1959-1967."
Humble, 1994. "Recovery of additional exotic predators of balsam woolly adelgid, Adelges
piceae (Ratzeburg) (Homoptera: Adelgidae), in British Columbia."
Focus stacks :)
Lady beetle is still alive as something is eating it. What is the predator??
Mating inside a rose blossom. Pretty romantic.
IDd to species based on distribution...
surfing the golden path
Thousands of them!
lone male Wood duck adopted by his Mallard family
I was cleaning the other day and found a bunch of old bug corpses that turned to dust at the slightest touch. Photographically, they are not really useful, but I figured I might as well post these here just to help confirm some species. Obviously thes are old dead ladybugs though I am not fully sure they are all the same species due to the spot shapes.
I'm aware of the likelihood of this species in Ontario... Posting this around with the hopes of getting feedback on the ID - more photos & rationale are presented here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XCYNtXAPaupZBFNZoTrMRuxo43UQy8KP/view?usp=sharing
Thanks in advance!
Birds, Lake Charleston, Charleston, Ill., Saturday, July 22, 2023. (© 2023 Greg A. Cooper)
That fly impaled itself to a leaf of Marram grass
There are many lady beetle and wasp species in these photos - so a single ID is not possible. But I thought the iNat community would be interested nonetheless. Many dead beetles and wasps were along the receding ice (spring melt) of Great Slave Lake. This was observed for approximately 1.2 kilometre along the ice edge.
3banded?
утка артистично изображала раненную жертву - отвлекала внимание.
Beetle in scots pine bark
Cinnamon teal duckling adopted by Mallard family, never seen anything like this before!
This image is part of an observation I made a couple of days ago, but there was so much going on, including three different avian species, that it merits further comment. Here I am focusing on a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron (seen in the background) as it peeks out of the brush at a much larger Great Blue Heron, attempting to drive off a Red-shouldered Hawk which has landed on the island. A discarded shopping cart and other assorted trash, washed down the river by a recent storm, adds to the sense of discord, as does the turbulent water boiling in the background. Interesting to note, the hawk remained calmly on the fallen branch throughout the display (which included lots of loud squawking) until the large heron quieted down, before flying off.
So how is this observation about the Night Heron? I simply could not get over the look of that juvenile bird reacting to the conflict.
Wood duck family, with one adopted hooded merganser duckling.
insects? more like.. uh.. insex.. ahahaha.
ok i'll stop now
Chipmunk looking at the ladybug.
Apollo Park