Checked on the Tawny owl family in horrible wet weather this afternoon. Parent owl still keeping watch over what appears to now be a single surviving owlet. Owlet looking absolutely miserable as pulses of driving rain came through. #Birds #Owls #WestLothian #Scotland 🪶🦉 #Photography #Nikon

humble round beast 🪱

Chilly today, but early signs of spring. 1. Round-lobed hepatica, flowers closed in the chill. 2. Maidenhair spleenwort. 3-4. The creek.

🌷 Naturalist Mail Club - May Rewards 🌷 The featured species for May include the California kingsnake, miniature lupine, and silvery blue butterflies! Sign up below if you want to receive monthly naturalist mail from me! (sign ups end 4/30) International welcome! 💌 patreon.com/fossilforager #sciart

Ghost Shrimp 🦐 🟢

Pediocactus simpsonii, our Mountain Ball Cactus, blooming now off Button Rock trail #nativeplants 🌿

Vaquita

happy #fossilfriday! this is pezosiren, a sirenian from early eocene jamaica. a basal relative of manatees and dugongs, pezosiren was able to walk on land, and may have had an amphibious lifestyle like a hippopotamus (art by joschua knuppe)

happy #fossilfriday! bonus: this is monquirasaurus, a pliosaur from early cretaceous colombia. despite being discovered in 1977 and named (albeit as a species of kronosaurus) in 1992, the holotype did not receive a comprehensive description until 2021 (art by gabriel ugueto)

8/24 Beaked Whale species!! … #cetacea #ocean #whalewatch #dolphin

Cactus flowers today on my patio. I’ve had this plant for about 20 years. Unlike some of my others, it blooms repeatedly throughout the year, every time I let it dry out then water it deeply.

The White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) in Sicily are getting down to business... the raising a family business that is. 🐣 They have to ensure there will be enough future generations to deliver all those human babies. 😂 #BirdingItaly #BirdingSicily #storks #BirdsSeenIn2026

It’s a treat to see loons in breeding plumage in Orange County! This makes 3/3 regular loons in breeding plumage for me this year! 🥰 Red-throated Loon 📷🌿🪶

Green Frog 🐸

Zizotes milkweed is a weird little thing.

Check out this stunning fossil and life reconstruction of the chelicerate Megachelicerax, which lived 500 million years ago! @invertebratepal.bsky.social @harvardoeb.bsky.social Credit: @cambrianlife.bsky.social and Masato Hattori/Harvard University. Learn more at NYT https://nyti.ms/4tu8DnQ

Several cladonia species growing in the same space in pine woods. Some or all of these are likely easy enough to ID but motivation for thinking is highly non-existent at this time. #FungiFriends #lichen

Many extinct sirenians past the Eocene look pretty normal once their lose their hindlimbs, and then there is Anomotherium.

It’s been a few weeks, but I was finally able to photograph a bit today. We’re still waiting for spring to hit here and it was a gloomy, blustery day, but the birds were chattering and the redpolls are still here! This male common redpoll brought all the colour this dull day needed! #Birds 🪶

☀️went out looking for Cicindela scutellaris, and found Cicindela scutellaris🙇 🏖️here's a pair on sand, near a river🪲

Bud-Headed Groove Moss - Aulacomnium androgyna This one's pretty neat in that it has stalked gemmae (asexual reproductive part). Usually the little 'sticks' suspended above mosses have spore bearing structures.

The lone yellow one in a sea of maroon. #nativeplants #swamps

Wildly fortunate to find this black-chinned hummingbird today! I visited our foothills with good suspicion I’d see a few migrating hummers I first hiked the trail and heard a few costa’s hummingbirds, with no good candidates to photograph Came down from my hike and found this gem! 📷🌿🪶

Because I love you all I will share my snowberry clear wing moth.

As the ice begins to break up, the muskrats start to reappear on the water. #wildlife #muskrat

As for me, I finally bagged my 100th Queensland dragonfly! As the season is nearly over, this was most exciting 😊 Common Shutwing. Extremely cropped as tiny

Early morning male Yellowhammer on Bodmin moor today. #birds #birding

A rare carnivorous caterpillar stalks spiderwebs for food whilst dressed in the remains of its prey, a 2025 Science study reported. This species, dubbed the “bone collector,” is found only on a single mountainside on the Hawai’ian island of Oa’hu. https://scim.ag/4sbQJVH #ScienceMagArchives

1 of 3 Spanish Greenish Black-tips (Euchloe bazae) seen yesterday in Granada Province. Always a real privilege to see this stunning butterfly. More on the blog at lojawildlife.

A few raptors have been migrating through southern Türkiye over recent days, including this Lesser Spotted Eagle that flew overhead in Işıklı yesterday, presumably heading to somewhere in eastern Europe. #Birds

Hypnum cupressiforme taking the place of Trentepohlia (a green alga, but orange) on a fallen oak stump #moss #bryophytes

Meet the smallest rabbit in North America, the pygmy rabbit! On average, it weighs just under 1 lb (.45 kg) with a body length of 11 in (28 cm). It has a small range across the northwestern region of the U.S., where it inhabits deserts & shrubland. Photo: Paul Carter, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

I love photos of tiny bobtail squids swimming. He's a little guy on a mission. 🦑📷Tim Cameron (www.inaturalist.ca/observations...)

#RepostYourArt Day 2 is: Bloom Has to be this lovely black eyed Susan with a clouded sulphur #butterfly perched on it! #flower #insect #art #DigitalArt 🐡

The caterpillar’s head and tail.

That’s a caterpillar in the top image with the bit of lichen it’s supposed to be at the bottom. See the next post to get a closer look at the caterpillar. Been looking for more of the caterpillars but get faked out by the lichen.

The news is so dire all the time, I feel like I'm never taking deep breaths but also look at this shit the Virginia Bluebells in town are just going off right now

California kingsnake with miniature lupine & silvery blues 🦋🌿

I am following @byjessicaelena.bsky.social's great idea to #repostyourart in April ☀️ For todays prompt of "Hello!" I am bringing back this deer creature greeting some tiny toucans #art #cuteart #animalart #artyear

"Sem Volta" ~30,000 years ago, somewhere in eastern Brazil, a terror bird snatches a baby tamandua from its mother’s back before swiftly leaping onto the back of a gigantic 6-ton Notiomastodon platensis. The helpless mother never saw it coming and can only watch... 🥺 #paleoart #iceage

Arthropod Photo of the Week: April 1, 2026 Sweat bee Halictus ligatus Hymenoptera: Halictidae Observed in North Carolina, USA By Rey Acevedo (kingacedp.picfair.com), North Carolina, USA #arthropodPOTW

Mr Tawny early this morning when he was still awake. In the second pic, he’s keeping a close eye on a nearby mickey bird.

File this under trees that are total bad asses. #nativeplants #naturesky

We’ve decided to wait to mow and do lawn maintenance in the backyard to let it get a bit overgrown and supply some microhabitat and foraging space for wildlife and insects. We had a pair of Inca doves visit the backyard to forage today! Incas are my favorite doves. I always love seeing them. 🌿🪶

This Anna’s Hummingbird picked a beautiful spot to raise a family! #BirdOfTheDay #BestOfTheMonth #birds #nature #wildlife #photography

A photo from today's walk: wood anemone flowers, enjoying the afternoon sunshine. #bloomscrolling #photography #garden #FlowerReport #PNW #flowers

File this one under Photos You Can Hear 😂🙉 (Red-winged Blackbird) #birds

The Arroyo Toad (Anaxyrus californicus) is a federally endangered species found in California and Baja Mexico. Much of its habitat has been altered due to human activities. Also, introduced species have been feasting on them. 📸 USFWS learn more at buff.ly/AvyhVPf

Our friend the Beaked Toad, lives in Brazil and has had a number of different scientific names before becoming a member of genus Dendrophryniscus, the Brazilian Tree Toads! They are somewhat small, less than two inches long, but large for their genus! (photo by Mauro Teixeira Jr)

Sphagnum rubellum (red and orange) and papillosum ##moss #bryophyte