One of the 2 is fake - guess which one.

Solution for all who are still wondering: The plastic rattle snake has been put in the entrance of the camp kitchen as a deterrent against the local troop of Malbrouck Monkeys, which used to raid the stored food, and surprisingly they never ever entered the kitchen since then.

This skink, however, equipped with astounding cognitive abilities, shows off with his balls of steel.

Err, I think it's a female....

Experts - What is going on here? This male American Kestrel sure did seem to have the hots for this female Merlin. He kept trying to get close to her and even brought her a few treats (insects?) from the grass beneath the fence. She accepted the treats but didn't seem thrilled with the attention. However, when he flew off, she followed him...

My first thought was that the Western Gull had stolen an egg, but it was pliable and flexible, certainly uncharacteristic for eggs. The Gull dropped its prey twice, but picked it up again, squeezing hard, releasing blood and fluids, and then finally swallowed it whole. Pictures following are in sequence. The Gull had flown in from the sea, I noticed it because it was pursued by another and both where squeaking excitedly.

in the absence of a trunk or stone to lean on, a capybara may be an option;
I have observed these two individuals do this twice;

see also
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/nelson_wisnik/21258-the-friendly-capybara

We saw the snake eagle as it flew up from the ground. It flew in slow circles while it controlled and started to eat the snake. One minute from pic 1 to pic 8 where it started to eat the snake. Total time for this series, three minutes.

Snake at https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14774517

I’ve got a bit of a backlog of observations to upload, but I can’t not upload this one!

After a VERY long kayak trip from Balloch to Inchconachan, I spent about an hour and a half looking for the wild wallabies that live on the island. They were released in the 1940s and have had a stable population ever since, and I’d always wanted to see them (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/wallabies-of-inchconnachan).

Well, with less than ten minutes before I would have had to reluctantly start the trip back, I saw one! It was bounding through the ferns higher up the island, along one of the tracks they seem to have. I followed it for a while, more listening to the telltale ‘bouncing through undergrowth’ sound than seeing it (they’re fast), and finally was able to get this photo. Well worth the trip!

First sighting around 10:15-20am or so. Was alerted to this very large immature hawk by a mob of grackles that were after it. Bird soared and circled over the lots and continued north with grackles following it. Birder friend, Alex Lamoreaux showed up soon after and after relaying the sighting and jumping in the van to chase, we found the bird soaring over the Louie's Backyard area with the grackle mob in tow. Hawk then returned south and took refuge in the Sheepshead north lot. A bit later bird lifted off and circled the area for a bit and headed north out of sight. First suspicion was immature Common Black Hawk, but following better views, photos, and discussion by other birders present, we reached the conclusion that the ID is Great Black Hawk because of huge size, finely barred tail lacking thick black terminal bands, long legs that it dangled while soaring. White crescents were obvious nearing wing apex and white upper tail coverts were seen and photographed, differentiating it from Common Black Hawk. Coastal habitat and range fits better with Great Black Hawk than Common. ID Confirmed by expert, Bill Clark. Possible 1st US record following review. An incredible and totally unexpected bird!

Female ant cricket from Santa Barbara County, California. These crickets are closely associated with ants. They copy the movement rate of their adopted ant hosts and take on the odor of the colony until the ants accept them as members. In the colony, they lick ant secretions, prey on ant eggs, solicit regurgitated food, and feed on prey brought in by the ants.

Ran down from Cowles Mountain and continued South across Najavo Road and into the golf course. Dash camera caught this footage.

Dash Cam Video:

https://youtu.be/vEHkBC5AVtU

Channel 8's Story:

http://www.cbs8.com/story/37853219/mountain-lion-sighting-on-road-in-san-carlos

Channel 10's Story:

https://www.10news.com/news/mountain-lion-caught-on-dash-cam-crossing-san-carlos-street

Mission Time Courier Article:

https://missiontimescourier.com/san-carlos-man-has-surprise-encounter-with-lion/

This brilliant colour is caused by IIV-31 (Isopod Iridescent Virus). I've been checking hundreds of pill bugs over several years for this unusual phenomenon and my persistence finally paid off!
Sadly, this total colour change is usually the later stage of the virus; once a pill bug is this bright it generally doesn't have much longer to live.

A 122 cm SL long Largetooth Conger trawled at a depth of approximately 1000 m, by fishing vessel Rubicon, off Babel Island, Tasmania, April 2002 (AMS I.41361-001).

Images of fresh fish courtesy of Ian Merrington, NSW DPI. Images of preserved fish courtesy of Stuart Humphreys, Australian Museum.

See https://australianmuseum.net.au/largetooth-conger-bathyuroconger-vicinus

An endangered bird endemic to San Clemente Island, the San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike preys on a formerly endangered reptile endemic to the California Channel Islands, the Island Night Lizard (Xantusia riversiana). The shrike caught this lizard, gave the tail to his mate as a courtship gift, ate most of the body, and cached the head for later.

Cattle Egret
with Barn Swallow it has caught
Dry Tortugas, Florida
1 May 1988

Cattle Egrets are a species known to wander. They made it to the U.S. on their own in the early 1950s and are now a common species all over the Americas. I once found a dead Cattle Egret on a rocky beach in Antarctica. There are no insects on Antarctica, so that particular Cattle Egret just wandered too far. Such might be said for Florida's Dry Tortugas. They are called "dry" for good reason. There is no fresh water. Birds that end up there and are too tired to move on, simply die. It is a daily task of employees at Fort Jefferson to walk around and pick up and discard the Cattle Egret carcasses before they open the fort to the birdwatchers each spring day. On this day my group watched a starving Cattle Egret (there are few large insects for the egrets to feed on) grab a Barn Swallow. It certainly made for a strange scene!

On August 16, we witnessed what has to rank with one of the most incredible wildlife experiences I’ve ever had. Cheryl and I were on a trip with 6 other nature photographers and our leader. We had been in the Pantanal area of Brazil for about a week with 5 days along the Cuiaba River near Porto Jofre, looking for Jaguars and other photo ops. Our daily routine was breakfast at 5:30 AM and we took off on boats from 6 till about 11AM, lunch at noon at the lodge, then on the boats again 3PM till dark. Our group has 3 boats so just 3 people per boat so plenty of room for photo gear, etc. Over several days we had seen 10-12 Jaguars. Some were very good photo ops, some poor photo ops, some just glimpsed.

There are several lodges in the area and it is a popular place to visit for folks hoping to see Jaguars, so much like Yellowstone National Park, a crowd can gather when some significant wildlife is seen, but instead of car jams to see a Grizzly such as Yellowstone, this can be boat jams for a jaguar. I have seen as many as 22 boats, 70-100 feet off shore with lots of people in each boat taking photos of a sleeping Jaguar. BUT…that is not the end of the story! We were often in more remote areas of the rivers and inlets and streams more or less on our own looking for birds, etc., so lots of times there are no other boats around. The boat drivers all have radios, so if a Jaguar is seen, other boats are informed. We move 20-25 miles up and down the river to explore, so many times other boats are not close enough to arrive while a Jaguar is in view.

My limited Jaguar experience is that some are just sleeping and/or resting and mostly ignore the boats in the river. Others are walking though the edge of the forest near the river and when a boat becomes visible, the animal just vanishes back into the forest. This morning at about 7:30 AM our three boats were in an out-of-the way location, a mile or so apart. The boat I was in was photographing a Great Black Hawk when one of our other boats called us on the radio to say they had a Jaguar swimming in the river, apparently hunting, so we headed to that area. Apparently the Jaguar, with just its head visible, swam up to loafing Yacare Caimans and pounced onto a caiman which was about 6 or so feet long. The Jaguar and the caiman thrashed in the water with the Jaguar biting into the skull of the caiman. That is about the time our boat arrived, after the Jaguar had mostly subdued the caiman, but the caiman was still thrashing about. The Jaguar was up against a high dirt bank, still mostly in the water with a firm grip on the skull of the caiman and the Jaguar was not letting go. It was very dark and under heavy foliage and vines so I was shooting at 4000 and 6400 ISO but that was my only choice. Eventually the Jaguar was able to work itself and its prize away from the vines and it drug the caiman out of the water and up the dirt bank and eventually back into the forest to enjoy its catch beyond the curious and amazed eyes of the human observers. The caiman was as large or larger than the Jaguar. All I have to say is that a mature Jaguar is an incredibly powerful predator and watching this whole 15 minute episode is something I’ll not forget. What a beast!

This entire series was shot from a boat, perhaps 40 feet off the bank with a Canon EOS 7D Mark II and a Canon 100-400 IS lens in case anyone is interested.

Cuiaba River,
near Porto Jofre,
Pantanal,
Brazil
16 August 2017

Check this out. Last year we saw a hummer get caught and eaten by a large mantis. The mantis was sitting on one of the feeders. I never heard of that happening before. We’ve been feeding hummers and have had dense populations of hummers at our feeders for 25 years now, and we had never seen this before last year. We have seen several instances of large female black-and-yellow garden spiders catching and eating hummers, but lots of mantises are around and so far as we've seen, they have never caught a hummer until last year.

Today a mantis caught a hummer and is eating it right now. The mantis with its prey is sitting on the persimmon bush/tree that is right by the feeders.

It looks like it could be the same mantis, but I googled mantis longevity and apparently a year is the maximum lifespan, so this has got to be a new mantis. It is possible, maybe even likely that this is the offspring of the huge female mantis that caught the bird last year, as she was the only big mantis in the area we ever saw. Maybe mantis catch hummers all the time, but we just don’t see them do it, and I think it is a pretty rare behavior. This one couldn’t have learned the behavior from a mother she never saw. Is there an inheritable bird-eating trait in that particular lineage? I guess it's a simpler hypothesis that it's a trait for quicker growth or larger than average size, and that just allows them to include hummers on the menu by late summer.

A scrappy expanse of silky refuges and capture webs littered with body parts of previous victims. When preferred prey is entangled, the female spiders emerge from their 'nests' and overpower it by grabbing its extremities. In this case, a wasp https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319446.
Presumably they inject venom because after a minute or so the prey stops struggling. Then they snip it out of the web and carry it into one of several 'nests' or refuges.
Unwanted prey, often beetles (see https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319435 ) are also killed but sometimes left in the web, uneaten. Ants, in this case, Maranoplus ( https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319390 )scavenge around the periphery of the webs, feasting on unwanted beetles or other left-overs.

Dia 82, un individuo.
--------
Day 82, one individual.

Relacionado con // Related to:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2667158
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2667199
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2667420

Endemic Catalina Fox vs. Southern Pacific Rattlesnake. Both of them received some bites. The fox and snake ended up escaping in separate directions. I wouldn't be surprised if both died as a result of their injuries.

So there I was, at Disneyland with the family, and of course my mind is on what wildlife I might be able to scrounge out of the park. The 7D Mark II and 400mm lens was too big to lug around all day, so I did the best I could with my little Sony bridge camera. Enjoy!

Eating a southern pacific rattlesnake. 9 photos. FYI: we did come back the same direction 30 minutes later and saw the same snake (full belly) on a patch of asphalt about 10 yards from where we first saw it, as if giving itself belly heat (air temps were still around 80 degrees). Due to some comments received about regurge, I also went back in the daylight the next day, and checked the area and did not find a regurged rattler. I believe the king kept it down.