Stretching and preening and not a Least Bittern.
This fellow was not happy with my presence. There were two of them and there must be a nest nearby. On the recording there are other birds in the background - I think at least one is an Acorn Woodpecker.
While my sister-in-law and I were observing and photographing the Sunfish spawning in the very shallow waters of the Lower Governors Pond, the resident Great Blue Heron walked right in front of us, no more than about 5 feet from us because it was so intently focused on the Sunfish as prey ! ! ! ! ! ! It caught and ate three Green Sunfish as we watched and photographed.
In the second-to-last photo, check out the pattern of the displaced pond water as the Great Blue Heron thrusted its head forward towards its submerged fish prey ! ! ! !
Could be a sharp shinned juvenile, pretty sure it was a cooper. Let me know the ID traits I missed if it's a sharp shinned!
Eaten by the grebe
1 river otter eating a fish at Palmer’s Point
6 deer in the flooded Mad river. Went downstream
under the Hammond bridge - split into two groups of 3 & escaped the water on opposite sides of the river.
braving strong rapids in a freezing cold river.........
Old Borges Ranch, Contra Costa County, CA
Johnny Cash Tarantula
The snake swam away with the fish when it saw me, but returned to the bank to swallow it. Video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F9EvVgOSkk&t=1s
Two full term fawns expelled from mom after being hit by a car. Looked like someone moved mom off the road but the babies were still out there so I brought them off the highway to rest with their mother. I have a very tough stomach and routinely photograph roadkill for biology purposes but this was hard for me to see. Something desperately needs to be done about the issue with deer collisions in Auburn & Grass Valley.
This handsome adult male choked to death on a leopard shark
Sailor Bar pond
Along the Stevens Trail, lying on a large rock above a pool of water; entered the water a minute later.
Feeding on deer mouse
CA king snake climbing up a brick wall!
Being eaten by a Red-shouldered Hawk.
Located under pine needles
Found on the Timber Creek overlook trail in Kolob Canyon
Kingfisher carrying unlucky captured crawdad prey in its bill.
hollowed out. quite weird
Pecking into the wet sand and almost every time pulling out a mole crab. Most of them were immediately discarded, but if the crab was a roe-bearing female the raven would bite off the abdomen + eggs and gulp it. Video here: https://youtu.be/pI5mbiCj4Bs
The video shows a few females eaten this way, but doesn't show the raven's overall remarkable rate of crab-getting success. When I was first watching it it would stab into the sand every couple of seconds and get a crab each time, littering the sand around itself with discarded crabs.