como_plants_animals_rocks's Favorites

"httqh" incredibly neat moment, and it'll be hard to beat. i could talk about this encounter for hours. watched this bird for over 30 minutes. preened, moved around, ate an avocado, even vocalized.

mink heavy day. 1 of 4 adults seen, 2 possibly 3 babies seen. really cute of course. 1 baby was in mom's mouth as she swam across the river, another was on mom's back who then ducked into the roots and returned with no baby. cute jelly bean toes. might be the best mink day, i'll ever have - not sure it can be topped. at one point i was within inches of one watching me take a photo of a liverwort. didn't know it was there. they were easily the highlight of the tirp along with cave salamander. also saw otter, but didn't get the photo.

henry

"they grow up so fast" - found as a little white bug on the kitchen floor, in 20 minutes it had it's wings, 8 hours it was fully colored. used the internet to make an acceptable enclosure, enjoyed it throughout the day, and released it in the evening. never heard it call, but we are leaving in the am, and can't cycle water and want it to live a full life, otherwise i might have kept it a few more days for song purposes. honestly, it'd break our heart if after 13/17 years, he just died in our kitchen, granted it broke our hearts having our cicada nest emptied. so tiny and cute, little more than an inch. would just love to tickle his toes! brought us lot's of joy.

go henry go, go find a partner. you've got this! 13 years, 17 years, whatever - that's nothing, go on and get some of the world henry! thanks for sharing your day with us, you are easily one of the coolest cicada's we've seen. climb to the top of that maple and sing your heart out!

tired from eating all the bugs! really cute, watched for a while. watched some traffic go by, and eventually lost track of the bird. couldn't relocate, and it looks like the grass was torn up recently by a 4x4 vehicle. will remember this one for awhile...

what a creature! what a tail! lovely lovely lovely. love a good 'mander. happy to finally see one in boone county. still looking for small mouth- probably not happening this year, on account of another drought.

incredible!! one of our favorites. it followed our light across the moat, waved to us, then gave us a show. originally we thought maybe it was an octopus, but this is neat, too! looked alien, sparkly, and very psychedelic

almost had a shot of both of them out of the water entirely. exciting show. haven't seen these in years. in 3rd and final photo, dolphin is just the small piece in the center of frame, with humans on jet ski in upper right, and possible turtle or another dolphin in bottom left. really like that photo.

!! awesome !!
decided to walk back to my parked car the long way for about 100 yards more, and i saw/heard a longspur flock land 200 yards away. seemingly coming from nowhere (many birders out that day, someone must have flushed them). i approached carefully, but long before i could see them, they flushed. they went to another field, stayed there for a minute, flew and rattled again, into another field. 1 minute later they came back to the original spot i saw them, where i was conveniently and readily located. upon landing they were not vocal. they clearly didn't mind my presence, as i got to watch them feed for at least half an hour. love a little brown job, they were like mice, scurrying about. probably my county bird of the month. outside of a few oddballs that might show up in the future, i think i got all the birds on this property list, so thankfully can put this place on the never have to go back again list.

still on team longspur vs meadowlark

photo with flash was an accident, but luckily i was a fair distance away. hard to get a good photo without lighting and staying a respectable distance away. hole in the side of a limestone bluff.

size of a human thumb, about 2 inches.

i'll remove some photos eventually, but wanted to make sure to put my best up.

saw these big beautiful birds on the side of the road, and luckily had a pull out. we watched them for about 10 minutes before a local in a loud smelly mufferlless car passed, saw me, made eye contact. then proceeded to slam on the breaks, slam on the gas, make a bunch of noise and smells. my heart was dropping, as i expected them to fly away. they just walked off, and he drove away. then 2 more cars showed up and they hopped out of their cars! luckily the birds were a ways away at that point. we got out and talked to them. it was a sweet local taking her daughter and out of town friend to see them. seh was old enough to remember them as a child, and then mentioned a few local things to visit (house graves where family was buried).

5 stars lol

lots of fun looking for this wild goose in iowa. people from 6 states in multiple cars, spread out. eventually it just came to the main pond. should probably write a journal entry for this. thx to lw for the hookup!

want to learn video stabilization techniques for content like the gif with stationary objects.

locally famous bird, not my find. third time to try, glad it finally gave me a show! black/white cat sat on my hood meowing, birds didn't mind. orange tabby also walking around. never went to feeder, hovered near it once. otherwise just sat in nearby trees. occasionally would see it zip off towards the back. had 0 eyes on it for 95% of the time i sat and watched.

on first glance - i'd guess tawny spider wasp! no orangish wings probably rules out eastern tawny. not very purple and wasn't nearly as large as the elgegant trantula hawk wasp i photod earlier in the year. tawny has a 2nd seasonal bump this time of year, wheras elgant does not. a weird interest in wondering what their sting feels like.

super curious once again and came to me, right outside my car. gave quite the show. much less timid than the marshes i've been seeing. another sedge wren gave me a similar experience, same with clucking which i didn't record - a month ago. really loving these guys, so much attitude. reminds me of carolina wren. the audio clip is from this exact moment in the gif. some kind of alert i'm guessing.

fish on! looked over at just the right time to see a fisherman set the line. what an awesome observation. i got to watch his partner work to clear his line and remove any obstacles and get into a good spot to help. the fisherman had to work it for a fair bit of time, eventually getting into a ripple, where his friend was in the perfect spot to scoop it up. once they were holding it, they were so excited! when they did their hold and pose for a photo, i couldnt' help but see how happy he was. i asked him for a photo after and he obliged!

nice series of this cool creature. couple of angles, nice light and focus and distance.

hopefully the order stayed correct during upload...

put as flying insect as i'm not sure - i'd guess some type of wasp, but a bee, fly, mimic, or anything else really wouldn't surprise me

wow, incredible. wish i saw it in a different environment, and wish I had blocked out the sun for the full wing shot.

some wing damage, it was struggling, moved it away from concrete into a shady spot and put some sugar water in lid, near. moth's gone, now.

what i thought was a cat, turned out to be an illegally smol fox, always cool to see a baby and first of the year for me. hardly ever get photos of these, hope to get a good daytime shot before my yard is fenced in. 2 babies last year, only seen the 1 this year. ate the bird, scratched, and wandered off

memory card corrupted! in one of the photos for this series, i took a great photo and boom, can't read card, needs to be formatted. uh oh. it included the weird worm thing that ai suggest is a spring fly, and the kentucky warbler. 2 new to me species, besides this bittern which is one of my favorites. ughh. nothing worked. then i tried a program called "recuva" and against all odds, I got the photos back! probably got a virus in the process, whoops :P worth it!

one of our best wildlife encounters - had this one and maybe a few others on top of our campsite. we were playing with a telescope and heard the calls. due to a skunk in our camp encounter 15 minutes earlier, the camera was all setup and ready to go. we had to look for it a bit, before finding it unobstructed, right by us!

lucky combo! the only bird on my trip want to see top 5, to actually be seen!

pretty fun observation - got to watch a close kingfisher going after food, and getting some on occasion. had lots of good chances to get them going into the water, but never really panned out. at one point, i had a stranger come in and they had a go at each other and could see 3 different birds. all this content comes from the same bird, i watched feed for awhile. very cool and windy, made for poor audio. wigeon in the background

would have been happy with pictures 2 and 3, but yea 1 was pretty cool. got to watch it peent and all... camera malfunction otherwise a nice peent gif would have happened.

just love these things and the flight displays and weird calls, and really like bringing people out to see them.

2 of them. came out of nowhere running right at us, and my partners dog. i hadn't seen anything up to this point, so my camera wasn't ready. lots of commotion with them, dog pulling my partner in an attempt to get them, me getting my camera ready. unfortunately this is the best shots i could get. i'll take them! so cool! very quick, but we got a brief moment where both jumped upon a log, gave us some quick but good looks, and were gone. they made the cutest sounds! partner walked off with pup, i hung around and got 2 see one scramble away leaving, but unfortunately it didn't stop and look for better photo.

got a few brief seconds of audio, as at some point in all that i went to video mode.

simply amazing to see these. everything about this observation was just perfect. we heard them before seeing them, thinking we were on the right path. this was my third time looking, my partners 2nd since we found out about them. watching them forage with ducks coming and going, with a nice farmstead/barn/windmill in the background is/was pretty cool. when we visually found them, there were a lot of ducks between us, and they were flying everywhere. we thought we wouldn't get a good look, so took to crawling 50 yards to hide under the grass and get to a good spot to watch. so much goose and duck poop everywhere... but probably worth it (worth it until i come down with a sickness). need to put hand sanitizer in the day pack, as i kept thinking of that while we had our snacks and watched the cranes. eventually they walked off and flew away, and i just happened to be ready for it with my camera. at this point they bugled a bunch, but became 2 distant to get good audio. the laughs/calls of the nearby geese/ducks as our audio backdrop was also cool, and fortunate timing to get almost evening light from the perfect direction for photos. we found 17 of the known 21.

makes me so happy seeing these somewhat local, and just have to say that this property is currently is producing magic and can't wait to try come back in a new season with new life forms. i'm very curious if they just live there all the time, or they eventually move on?

really awesome encounter with a short eared owl during twilight hour. watched it for a solid 20 minutes. this is the 2nd time i've observed short eared owl at this location, the other time there were 2 and it was a lot later in the day.

this guy was super relaxed with 3 vehicles. we were at a distance as we were last to the party and didn't want to scare it off. the others just kept trying to inch closer until they drove off the road, missed the parking lot and got stuck, or something? the drifts were really high right there. at that point we didn't care about etiquette and moved to get closer ourselves. it worked out, the bird stayed we got some great looks and the people in the stuck car, just stayed insided it (super cold out).

other than 1 lone swan, a few typical red tailed hawks, and a dozen harriers, it was the only bird around. more cards than birds.

really glad we got to see this one close and get some nice photos. thanks to my partner for bringing me super luck.

real treasure, and great way to end the night. right place at the right time. perfect position, with clear shot and evening light. can't' believe how lucky i am. was trying to stake out a cool looking dark morphed buteo, that also hangs out in those woods.

right place at the right time, watching a small flock of snow geese and several thousand descended upon us. 30 minutes of constant streaming into the field, we just sat there watched, and ate lunch. noisy and overall incredible.

been wanting to see this one for awhile! i'm a sucker for small sparrow like birds. this experience was great - i've been trying to get photos of western meadowlark and had got out of my car to get a few better photos. was watching those meadowlarks for a solid 15 minutes - only to notice i was surrounded by longspurs. they were withing 5 foot of me, and in all 4 cardinal directions. i focused on a small group in the direction i was facing, so as to not scare the flock. 50+ total. unfortunately i didn't have my phone with me to record the audio - but did get to hear a multitude of calls/songs. after noticing them, i stopped paying attention to the meadowlarks and they flew off without me noticing. so i'll have to try again for the western, but this was way cooler, for my bird tastes. at least 7 birds in the last shot. the lighting was absolutely breathtaking, and can't believe the universe unfolded this experience in front of my appreciating eyes.

i have one more day since i started a bird heavy push with a STL field trip, not sure if i'll go out or just let this be my final memory of the week. did manage to take several shots of the meadowlarks - got some great eastern photos and a few possible westerns. still some time left this winter to check them off the list and hope it happens!

been watching these swans for a month now - so beautiful and awesome any given day - but this day they were just special - cold weather froze most of the water but a small pool, really close to the road - evening lighting did the rest. with cold weather for a few more days, - hope the ice doesn't freeze all they way and they move away :(

got to watch them feed, preen, and chill out. got some great photos that include the swan heart shape necks, feeding, and wings spread out.

these types of experiences never get old :D

after looking in every large group of mallards, i finally found some/the black duck. really fun experience with them - they seemed to be in total sync. i also got to watch one of them fight with a mallard, which was pretty cool. really glad they were located where they were at, as it was just inside of camera range, with the the overcast light at a good angle. a handful of the photos give a good look at the blue on the wing.

grey bird with white eyestripe. slightly larger than the killdeer. was with about 10 killdeer spread over 30 xx 30 area. good sun, gave me some nice looks of different angles and some comparison with the other birds.