hawnzd's Favorites

Here's some behavior I've been hoping to capture for a while! These Callobius pictus males had a quick dispute on one of the sheds in my yard. The shed is home to many C. pictus and C. severus spiders, especially the former right now.

The larger spider (left in the pictures) was crawling up along one of the corners while the smaller one was milling around higher up. The males seemed to notice one another from a distance of about 10 cm and they began moving in rather abrupt, jerky motions towards one another. When they were close enough, they stretched out their front legs out to the sides and made contact with the other spider's similarly extended legs. Then they came together and tussled for a bit, also grappling with their second pair of legs. The actual physical contact lasted only about 10 seconds. The smaller spider (right in the pictures) retreated and neither seemed any worse for wear.

The images of the dispute are in REVERSE chronological order. The individual close-ups are of the smaller spider on the right following the encounter.

I've seen similar behaviour in C. severus before, although the severus duel I photographed was lengthier with multiple scuffles:

https://bugguide.net/node/view/795954/bgimage

I’ve been assuming these little guys I see sometimes are just larval D. opalescens but I don’t actually know what all other species are in the area so want to look into a little more/hear from folks before specifying it down

Last spring, a robin spent at least a week tormenting his reflection in the windows on my rig, occasionally stopping to rest and use the side view mirror as a toilet. It looks like he or his apprentice is back at it this spring!

High density in the shallow subtidal. This population appears to have survived when most sunflower stars elsewhere, especially in the Salish Sea, were killed by the Sea Star Wasting Syndrome in late 2013/early 2014.

Wow! My first for Ocean Shores, first Inat record of living Sea Otter South of the Queets mouth in Washington. Looked pretty healthy, viewed in the scope for about five minutes just off the jetty tip.

Photo license and credit belong to the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH), the Hakai Institute, and MarineGEO | http://specifyportal.flmnh.ufl.edu/iz/ | Field Number: BHAK-1827 | This observation is a part of the collaborative work between FLMNH, the Smithsonian Institution's Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO) and Tennenbaum Marine Observatories Network, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, and the Hakai Institute

Screengrabs from a video I took of a western terrestrial/wandering garter snake with a fish in its mouth. My initial ID Is northern clingfish, based on the head shape and presumably quickly narrowing body further inside the snake (the snake isn't really bulging out at all), but that would be right at the upper end of the species' ~6 inch long size range, so any other ID suggestions would be welcomed!