Other birds I snapped at the same place — most excitingly, a bald eagle and an osprey, but I also got quite nice shots of a song sparrow and a great egret!

Saw my first wild red-breasted mergansers yesterday! Some even allowed an opportunity to visually compare and contrast them to similar-looking common mergansers!

Waterfowl and turtles I saw yesterday:

1. Common merganser taking off
2. Buffleheads
3. Wood duck taking off + some map turtles
4. Canada goose on nest with some painted turtle friends

“The journey’s a lonely road,

So much more than we know.

But sometimes you’ve got to go,

Go on and be your own hero.”

Northern shovelers, gadwalls, and feral domestic geese I found yesterday!

Happy Manatee Appreciation Day! Here’s a (not particularly good) photo of a West Indian manatee I took back in 2017 at the Cincinnati Zoo!

Accidental discovery reveals new climate threat to emperor penguins The plight of the emperor penguin might be more dire than previously thought. For the first time, scientists have used satellite data to discover new locations in Antarctica where the birds go to…

Accidental discovery reveals new climate threat to emperor penguins news.mongabay.com/2026/03/acci...

Basically, according to the film, it’s okay for mammals to eat fish, but not for fish to eat mammals. Which is obviously really dumb. (2/2)

As a connoisseur of talking animal fiction, I decided to watch this movie on Netflix recently. Didn’t think it was very good — the film frames the sharks preying on the seals as some kind of moral injustice even though the same seals are shown preying on fish themselves. (1/2)

Asian black bears actually DID range into Europe (though no remains are known from the UK) during the Pleistocene, but a) the filmmakers almost certainly didn’t know this and b) they would’ve been long extinct by the time Brave takes place. Only brown bears lived in Scotland within historical times.

As a kid, I always thought it was strange that all the bears shown in Pixar’s Brave seemed to be American black bears, despite this species never having lived in Scotland or Europe in general. However, it can actually be justified by all the bears in the film having originally been humans.

Cedar waxwing!

Canada goose, redheads, ring-necked ducks, and ring-billed and an American herring gull on the Huron River!

Hooded mergansers and an American wigeon I saw on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk last weekend!

A black vulture I saw on the grounds of the Virginia Zoo. While they are a common sight throughout much of the US Southeast, it was my first time seeing one in the wild!

Forget to share this photo that captures this predator-prey arrangement well!

Photo taken at Virginia Zoo

Shots I got of one of the Malayan tigers. Hardly stellar, but still probably the best photos I’ve taken of this subspecies, which I’ve seen at much fewer zoos compared to Amur and Sumatran.

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Green oropendolas and a Victoria crowned pigeon in the conservatory of World of Reptiles & Friends and an Indian peafowl in the attached outdoor aviary! Their presence is more fitting than it might initially seem when you remember that birds are reptiles too!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Green oropendolas and a Victoria crowned pigeon in the conservatory of World of Reptiles & Friends and an Indian peafowl in the attached outdoor aviary! Their presence is more fitting than it might initially seem when you remember that birds are reptiles too!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Finally getting into the “friends” of World of Reptiles & Friends! Here are some amphibians: Iranian newt, golden mantella, and dyeing poison dart frog

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Miscellaneous reptiles in World of Reptiles & Friends! Siamese crocodile, a juvenile Chinese crocodile lizard, Baron’s green racer, and McCord’s box turtle!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Some other lizards in World of Reptiles & Friends! Fiji banded iguana, New Caledonia giant gecko, Jamaican iguana, and giant horned lizard!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

This crocodile monitor too!

World of Reptiles & Friends had one of the most extensive monitor lizard collections I’ve ever seen! Pictured here are a blue-spotted, black, AND a yellow tree monitor, plus my first perentie!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Nonvenomous snakes in World of Reptiles & Friends! Jamaican boa and reticulated, Angolan, and Timor pythons!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

MORE venomous snakes in World of Reptiles & Friends! Malagasy giant hognose snake, eyelash viper, rhinoceros viper, and banded rock rattlesnake!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Venomous snakes in World of Reptiles & Friends! King cobra, Aruba Island rattlesnake, mangrove snake, and speckled rattlesnake!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

African Safari Trail Part 2! Meerkat, eastern bongo, blue crane, and South African cheetah!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

African Safari Trail Part 1! Masai giraffe, southern white rhinoceros, red river hog, and African lion!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo

Some birds on Trail of the Tiger — white-naped and sarus crane, rhinoceros hornbill, and tawny frogmouth!

Photos taken at Virginia Zoo