Have a great new week everyone!.This Yellow Crowned Night Heron was an anomoly at one of the local ponds I frequent. He was there maybe three weeks this summer. After one storm we had, he disappeared. I hope he has moved on to other life adventures at another good pond! He was a joy! #YNCH #birds

First Painted Lady of the year and my camera lens was totally fogged over. 😂 our humidity has been lower and I forgot it would do that! #inverts

They're baaack even in the pouring rain. 💙

Who wants to be Raptured when down here on Earth we have Skippers to keep us happy and confused, and distract us from birding. Clouded Skipper from the Rock Creek Park Maintenance Yard, of all places.

A Hackberry Gall Psyllid! I think they look like miniature cicadas. While the perception that their galls might harm the trees, it’s mostly cosmetic and these emerge in the fall as a critical food for migrating songbirds.

Welcome to the The Raptor!

Shamrock Orbweaver #spiders #nature #photography

I’ve been illustrating insects. #illustrator #illustration #draw #drawing #collage #bugs #insects #digital

Sometimes smol friends need help. This ladybug larva somehow ended up in the house.

These two Eastern Kingbirds took my heart the last few visits to Horicon. The pair, an adult and a juvie have been spending their fledging time at Horicon. I imagine they nested there. What a treat they have been. This is the adult. Short thread.🧵 #birds #EasternKingbird

The adorable oblong woolcarder bee might be your new best friend.

I love them so much. Yolo Bypass Bats 🦇🤎 (I was too dang excited and emotional to get any decent pics. Thank you @theonetruekat.bsky.social!!)

#PlantNative Native Plants: •support over 3 times more plant-eating insect species. •produce over 4 times the amount of planteating insects. •produce 6 times the amount of plant-eating insects that are generalists. •support 35 times more caterpillars -Doug Tallamy

Despite the unusually dry weather we had a successful Bug Walk in Audubon Park and nearby neighborhood to find insects of medical (and non medical) relevance. This year we had folks download @inaturalist.bsky.social (or Seek) to practice documenting the biota in the city.

© Sarah Yeoman. 'Totem,' Watercolour.

The Moon, Venus, and Regulus this morning.

Today is the last day to help make your voice heard for protection of our wilderness, places where we need to get away from the trauma of being human. Places of solitude. Please speak up for roadless rule. It’s easy and it only takes a few minutes at this link. earthjustice.org/action/prote...

We’re doing this work because we believe that informed and inspired people will build a better relationship with the natural world. And we intentionally produce bioGraphic for regular people—not just politicians or professors—because it’s regular people, everywhere, who push our societies to change.

For #InsectThursday here's a Fog-belt bumble bee (Bombus caliginosus) on female Coyote Brush(Baccharis pilularis) last month in #PtReyes. Also known as Obscure bumble bee, they have a vulnerable conservation status.💚 #NativePlants #CaliforniaNativePlants #NativeBees #Inverts #NaturePhotos #iNat 📷🌱🐝

White-throated Sparrows stop by the yard during fall migration to provide complimentary leaf litter and mulch rearrangement services #birds

Junior Broad-Winged Hawk is ready for his fall photoshoot. Should I mention the teensy bit of blood on his talons from lunch? Nah #birds 🌿

Only four days left to submit a comment in support of our wild places and wildlife protected from clear cutting and overzealous off-roaders. Save the wilderness roadless rule. Due 9/19. Thank you.

A sweat bee busy looking for snacks. The flower is an aster and the center of the flower contains lots of small florets that produce pollen and nectar. Asters are a wonderful fall food source for lots of insects. #inverts (Augochlora sp.) PA

Keep soaring with morals, goodness, and strength of character.

Leaf cutting bee and a gray hairstreak butterfly walk into a bar together . . .

These little chalcid wasps are my fave! And the color combo with the grass leaf goldenrod is just stunning! #insects

Common buckeye at the fish hatchery today. Morehead, KY

Is that what people mean by "close to their sibling"? Southeast Texas, September 2025 #Alligators #Herps #Reptiles #Photography #Wildlife #Nature #Babies #TexasStateParks #NaturePhotography

Black swallowtail (not quite enough blue on hindwings for a pipevine swallowtail) - checking the zinnias (a little skipper, too) #Inverts 🌿

Common buckeye butterfly. They are "found in open, sunny habitats such as fields, lawns, and roadsides and are not typically found in dense woodlands. Their numbers increase significantly during their fall migration"--but you have to look. 🤓 Massachusetts Sept 11, 2018

HEY!

Four years ago today 🌿 Hypericum majus, our uncommon Greater St. John's-Wort, blooming east of the East Boulder Rec. Center #nativeplants An ironic name since it’s so much smaller than regular St. John's-Wort. 🤷🏻‍♂️

No, your city does not have to fly the flags in honor of a hateful person. Unfortunately, ours chose to. I have strongly objected.

I can’t believe that I actually have to check today to see if my city is flying its flag at half staff directly in violation of the city’s employee code of values that were supposed to live by.

No students showed up for my afterschool art class today, so we're making the most of it with this pollinating Halictid. 🎨 I have an acute aversion to the color orange (especially living in the US right now 🫠) but the underpainting method has been helping brighten midtones/improve realism. 🪳🪲🐡

Back to bugs. This tiny moth was enjoying the goldenrods.

No, I’m not gonna make a martyr out of a guy who celebrated gun violence, and demeaned marginalized communities who (should) have the same rights as white males. This is far from two sided moment that everyone is at fault, that somehow words and actions don’t have consequences. No martyrs No kings.

Elderberry, Jack-in-the-Pulpit berries & Blue Cardinal Flower, seen on a hike in #OronoCrownLands 🥾

Pearl Crescent butterfly. It was just a little thing. #Butterflys

Not the flashiest of birds, but their constant butt bob as they explore their surroundings is a lot of fun to watch. Northern Waterthrush #birds #nature #wildlife #photography #WaderWednesday

A single red feather hints at the ruby throat to come Ruby-throated Hummingbird #birds 🌿

A sharp-tailed bee visits the goldenrod. They parasitize leaf-cutter bees nests. Many solitary bees have nest parasites, often other bees species. Their young consume the provisions gathered by their hosts.

One of my favorite plants, the Cowpen Daisy!

I like how they carry the stink bugs 😅

Eastern Pondhawk #dragonflies #nature #green #photography

Hey, you’re on the porch! I’m turning out the light. Click away! Greater Anglewing Katydid.

California Ground Squirrel looking quite elegant in their gray collar and speckled overcoat! #mammals #becurious 🦊

...and The Albatross (my yard) Life List #97! Willow Flycatcher Will I get to 100 by year 5?? (probably not lol) #birds #becurious

One can never have too many head-on Song Sparrow in Borb Mode pics. Never. #birds #becurious

Amanita Muscaria #FungiFriends