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The garage wren babies are now somewhat visible with their hungry little beaks. Momma wren has a big job giving each one an insect, she's been pretty busy the last few days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IbIXA8e2SA
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# ? May 13, 2021 07:36 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:43 |
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That's in your garage, right? I feel like the outside world will be a real surprise to them when they're flying and mom and dad show them how to get out.
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# ? May 13, 2021 12:25 |
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It is in fact a dekay's brown snake.
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# ? May 13, 2021 13:50 |
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poverty goat posted:A few mins ago I walked outside and my crow friend immediately flew over and perched in the nearest tree, so I put out some dinner for him and he came down and ate it right away. So that's pretty cool. Seems he's figured out that I'm me and I trade food for caws. I've been feeding the local corvids for YEARS and they're still terrified of me. It's so annoying. Glad yours are working out though!
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# ? May 13, 2021 15:13 |
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Stickman posted:Nice shots! It looks just like the long-jawed spider in this article, but unfortunately the species isn't indentified. Maybe Tetragnatha extensa? Oh that sounds about right, especially given locale and behavior. We found him in a very swampy area.
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# ? May 13, 2021 16:37 |
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# ? May 13, 2021 17:02 |
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i've seen like 4 muskrats in the last week and didnt get a single photo
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# ? May 13, 2021 17:04 |
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The Red Queen posted:That's in your garage, right? I feel like the outside world will be a real surprise to them when they're flying and mom and dad show them how to get out. Yeah, there's some windows in there, three small ones in one of the garage door panels and one large one on the opposite side, but everything is closed up most of the time. I'm a little concerned about fledglings being trapped in the garage and getting stuck on the floor, but I've also been concerned about the wrens getting in and out okay and getting enough food and water which so far has not been a problem for them, so I guess I'm going to not worry about it unless something obvious happens. I check out the recorded motion videos a couple of times a day (there's a lot of 10 second clips of momma wren just fidgeting around) so hopefully I'll have a better idea of what's going on when it gets closer to that time. I'm guessing we have a week or so, but I'm no birb expert.
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# ? May 14, 2021 00:47 |
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I saw you have an Amcrest, too, I absolutely love mine, lets me take cool shots like the one below, where I can never tell if this is genuine leucism or if a wedding/funeral dove made a sexy detour on its way home:
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# ? May 15, 2021 14:32 |
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Annoyingly backlit house sparrow: Black-crowned night heron. First time spotting one of these!
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# ? May 15, 2021 23:13 |
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Chinston Wurchill posted:I've been feeding the local corvids for YEARS and they're still terrified of me. It's so annoying. Glad yours are working out though! He won''t let me see him eat; part of the deal is I have to leave the food way to the side where there's no line of sight through the door into the house. That's why there are no pics. He was a little more bold at first but a dog saw him and barked through the glass and it took a month to get him to come back. Now that we've definitely established contact I'll work on trying to make him get closer if he wants treats, and be sure to keep the dogs away.
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# ? May 15, 2021 23:19 |
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Speaking of corvids, I forgot these pictures from a super interesting encounter this morning. I was out for my run (sans SLR) and on my way back I saw one of the gigantic local ravens on the ground. It took off when I came up the path and landed in a tree, so I went to get a closer look. Another bird flew up to harass it, which wasn't all that exciting until I realized that theother bird was a hawk. The hawk flew off in a bit and then the raven went on its way, then the hawk attacked it in mid-air and they continued their squabble until I was unable to keep up. On the way back up the path I saw a juvenile raven with one of its wings hanging slightly, so I approached to see if it could still fly. It was able to glide a short distance then hopped off into the woods. Hopefully it heals okay, and I wonder if the hawk/raven confrontation was related to this injury. I would have tried to catch it and take it to the wildlife rehab centre but the woods are dense, it was moving pretty quickly, I was about a kilometre away from home, and I didn't have anything to restrain or hold it with. Alas. Enjoy these terrible zoomed in dimly lit cell phone pics!
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# ? May 15, 2021 23:31 |
spotted this little fellow on my pea plants yesterday; they're probably about 1cm long at most
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# ? May 17, 2021 17:19 |
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That's okay I didn't want to shower anyway. The sparrows in my yard (and vents) need to work on their parenting skills. This happens every year!
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# ? May 17, 2021 19:51 |
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I wonder if they've been pushed out by cowbird babies or something similar.
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# ? May 17, 2021 23:09 |
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my cat is norris posted:I wonder if they've been pushed out by cowbird babies or something similar. Not impossible, but brown-headed cowbirds usually don't do this. Assuming the cowbird mom timed things right and got the eggs in so that they'd hatch first, cowbird babies can benefit from having the host chicks there since more chicks = more begging to inspire more feeding from the host chicks (and the cowbird chicks gets most of the feeding). It's mostly the old-world cuckoos that do the heave-ho. Sometimes it's just a poorly constructed nest or else a parent that got spooked and while escaping the nest accidentally pushes some babies out. Or occasionally some other species will take over a nest.
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# ? May 17, 2021 23:39 |
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Finally got my girlfriends garden slug stuff under control, but her button bush was still getting munched up like crazy. We found this guy under a leaf, but I can't really identify it. Some kind of sawfly maybe? Inaturalist wasn't much help and lord knows with bugs and their instars.
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# ? May 18, 2021 00:38 |
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Synnr posted:
Cropping and rotating got seek/inaturalist to come up with typical sawflies.
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# ? May 18, 2021 01:17 |
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Anyone know poop well enough to tell me what's going on here!? A bird didn't eat any yarn or anything, it broke up under the spray from the hose. What pterodactyl dropped this!? Also see squirrels and that one cooper's hawk but the pigeons and robins are the biggest things I see out there.
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# ? May 18, 2021 01:20 |
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Avian poo is white because it's also pee. Your mystery lump is more likely to be from a small-ish mammal.
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# ? May 18, 2021 03:53 |
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That looks avian to me. Probably a ground-feeder, I'd bet on dove. I'm not positive but I think it's caused by constipation, small stringy poos getting all impacted into each other in the cloaca and coming out as a heroic work of art like that. also, poo photos are good, more please. scat is super interesting and fun to try and ID. pictures are worth 1000 words but a picture of a turd tells a whole 3 act story treat fucked around with this message at 04:25 on May 18, 2021 |
# ? May 18, 2021 04:21 |
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Heard some rustling behind my dad's trash can and braced myself as I pulled it out. Mouse? Rat? Nope
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# ? May 18, 2021 05:37 |
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Scarodactyl posted:Heard some rustling behind my dad's trash can and braced myself as I pulled it out. Mouse? Rat? Awww look at its widdle ears
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# ? May 18, 2021 14:12 |
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poverty goat posted:A few mins ago I walked outside and my crow friend immediately flew over and perched in the nearest tree, so I put out some dinner for him and he came down and ate it right away. So that's pretty cool. Seems he's figured out that I'm me and I trade food for caws. It just happened again. Though I tried to make it happen a couple of times when I heard crows earlier today and it didn't. But I've stopped putting dogfood/apples out every morning and started to only do it when we meet face to face like this. Next I'll try to force them to eat while beholding my terrifying visage, or not at all but maybe not for another couple of weeks
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# ? May 18, 2021 23:54 |
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Oh man, that's rad! Bird army imminent!
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# ? May 19, 2021 00:49 |
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poverty goat posted:It just happened again. Though I tried to make it happen a couple of times when I heard crows earlier today and it didn't. But I've stopped putting dogfood/apples out every morning and started to only do it when we meet face to face like this. Next I'll try to force them to eat while beholding my terrifying visage, or not at all but maybe not for another couple of weeks I keep a 3lb bag of Audobon raw peanuts by my front door, and the neighborhood jays and crows have figured out if they come to the tree outside my front window I will put a handful out for them. The scrub jays have it down the best, but at least one or two of the crows have figured it out, too. Steller's jays also stop by, but for whatever reason they aren't here as often.
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# ? May 19, 2021 06:12 |
can anyone help ID this tube friend? saw three of these while hiking today near santa cruz CA (Wilder Ranch). this individual was perfectly happy to lay out into the trail and show their black tongue while we walked past; in hindsight i wish i had tried to get a better shot since the others all scattered as soon as i noticed them. the photo doesn't show off how golden/green their scales are
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# ? May 20, 2021 04:35 |
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Could be a Forest Sharp-tailed snake? Contia longicauda? Hard to ID without seeing its belly.
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# ? May 20, 2021 05:15 |
the person I was hiking with thought its belly was probably orange based on experience, would that help narrow it down at all?
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# ? May 20, 2021 05:56 |
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Yellow Bellied Racer.
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# ? May 20, 2021 14:05 |
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The wren babies in my garage are pretty big now. I noticed last night that their parents didn't bring them anything from about 7pm until 5:45am. Even when their mom stayed with them she'd mostly take a break at night, though. I think it was about five days ago that she could barely fit into the nest and spent some time that night kind of sitting on the entrance with her tail hanging out. Since then she's moved out and it's just the babies' nest. According to the internet the parents have a new nest elsewhere, but will continue to feed the babies for the time being. The little ones will be learning to fly and leaving to be free any day now. I'm going to be keeping an eye on them because I don't want them all to get trapped in the garage. Their parents know how to get out but I don't think they do. After they were all fed this morning they calmed down a bit and now they're taking a nap, but this was just a little while ago. Four out of five eggs hatching is pretty good for a little wren family. I thought there were only three for the first week or so but I just couldn't see them all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZMDefVZJUo
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# ? May 20, 2021 14:12 |
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We were pretty alarmed to have a big 'ol raccoon just wander up onto our deck in the middle of the day with wet legs, but animal control said it's normal this time of year for mother raccoons to wander around during the day to find a good home for their babies.
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# ? May 20, 2021 20:55 |
treat posted:Yellow Bellied Racer. looks very much like what we saw, very cool, thanks! such a pretty snake
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# ? May 21, 2021 03:44 |
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Scarodactyl posted:
Yeah, if they aren't walking in circles, looking confused, or really raggedy it's less likely they're rabid or something. Still possible, but when they are sick it is usually fairly easy to spot, I think.
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# ? May 21, 2021 03:50 |
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Two crow friends @ breakfast today
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# ? May 22, 2021 15:30 |
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Pretty sure you don't belong outdoors in northern Alberta buddy.
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# ? May 23, 2021 02:10 |
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CaptainSarcastic posted:Yeah, if they aren't walking in circles, looking confused, or really raggedy it's less likely they're rabid or something. Still possible, but when they are sick it is usually fairly easy to spot, I think. Pretty much, you can actually look up rabid animal behavior online & it'll show you how most of them act if they're carriers. Lots of disorienting movement, unusual aggression, drooling/frothing mouth, stuff like that are all signs to get away or call animal control.
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# ? May 23, 2021 17:05 |
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I've seen him disappear into the creek a few times (along with a very orange corn snake), but this is the first time I got a good look at him. Not sure exactly what type of water snake he is (in central NC), maybe a northern? Nice patterning anyway.
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# ? May 25, 2021 22:52 |
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this fella certainly helped my mom with her business when it flew into the bathroom and right at her face while she was on the toilet. pretty sure it's a european hornet, quite a huge one too, I love the burgundy coloration. These might very well be the only social wasps I am cool with and won't kill on sight. yellowjackets are horrible aggressive assholes and get killed ASAP, but these guys are really laid back and totally cool with hanging out on my hand and cleaning themselves or what have you, really not interested in stinging you if they can help it. unfortunately none of my shots of it on a plant outside before it flew away came out properly, so only shots of it crawling around on my hand.
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# ? May 26, 2021 09:46 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:43 |
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I knew paper wasps were mellow but I had no idea the European hornets were that chill too!
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# ? May 26, 2021 12:13 |