A Brewer's blackbird puffs himself up like a balloon to announce his territory
The same blackbird, deflated, now cocks his head and looks quite angry
"Please don't put on Bluesky that I got mad." #birds
Lotus hairstreak, an iridescent green butterfly with a brownish wash on its forewing, sits on a fluffy yellow flower
Brown elfin, a similarly shaped butterfly that is all an orange-y brown with darker brown spots
Henry's elfin, which looks like a piece of browned leaf, sits upside-down on a pink redbud flower
Juniper hairstreak, marked like the lotus hairstreak in green and brown but with jagged brown, white, and black stripes
A delightful thing I've noticed is that #butterflies of the Callophyrus genus often flock together. In California recently, I saw lotus hairstreaks alongside brown elfins, and previously in Tennessee, I've seen juniper hairstreaks with Henry's elfins. Such cheerful pals. #Inverts #BugSky
EVEN COOLER. What a great find!
That O. rhodia is COOL. What's happening there--is the green bit above the colors part of the sheath for the flower, or is it a petal that's half-green, half-speckled? I feel like this is a whole botany lesson in a single flower...
Image is of the Rio Grand river cutting through a slot canyon in Big Bend National Park. Text overlay says, "no border wall through Big Bend."
We teamed up with Texas Civil Rights Project today and sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection for withholding public records on plans to build border walls through the #BigBend region of Texas.
More info: biodiv.us/4dzdxv4
This absolutely has to be stopped. @natbutterflycenter.bsky.social is priceless for both wildlife and its community (and anyone who loves butterflies).
Birds attacking mirrors, a thread. Tufted titmice are constantly attacking my car window, but this is the first one I've seen that's taken up smoking. 🪶 🪞
A small fuzzy bee with black eyes, jaws, and antennae and a white mustache peeks up from the stem of a plant with three new leaves
My favorite spring 'staches belong to the many little mining bees in the forest. The males are often sitting on top of the brand-new wildflowers to take a rest or watch for passing ladies. #bees #bugsky
A large and a small heron in a pond set against tall grasses. Both have their wings raised because they have just had a skirmish.
A great blue heron and a little blue heron, when juxtaposed, prove that sometimes bird names are just and correct. #BirdOfTheDay #MixedPairs 🪶
Today's a good day to get up close with an Orchid Mantis (Hymenopus coronatus). ➡️
Oh yay!!! I can't wait to see it in the wild!
I assume they loop their lookout in on the shenanigans after the meeting!
Crocuses are one of those things that make little cartoon hearts pop out of my head every time I see them!
Yawny about Costa Rican birds? Silly Roger!
A group of five black and white birds with comical (and conical) orange and black beaks huddle up on top of a seaweed-covered rock.
These Atlantic puffins are Up to Something. No razorbills, murres, or humans allowed in the club! #BirdOfTheDay #FourOrMore
A songbird with a blue head, red chest, and red-ringed eye stretches up tall as he prepares to inspect a small flower on a tree.
For #BirdOfTheDay, my favorite primary-colored bird has to be the painted bunting. I rarely get to see them, so that makes their rainbow of colors even more exciting when I do. 🪶
It's been a long time coming! Thankfully they were really interested in sitting in the mowed parts of a pathway, so once we found the right place we had good views.
A big round shorebird with a light orange chest and dappled wing feathers of all sorts, plus a huge eye and long pinkish beak, sits in a grassy field illuminated by flashlight.
Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #BestOfTheMonth, and for me that was the experience of finally seeing an American woodcock. We get a short window this time of year to find them before they head north to breed, and in the past I've only heard a distant peent. This one, though, was a real sweetie! 🪶
There are so many red-shouldered hawks in our little forest screaming bloody murder at each other that a couple weeks ago, I said, "This is a total soap opera." So today I wrote about it. I give you: The Bold and the Buteo. 🪶 overtonpark.org/blog/naturez...
Is a sherbet-colored borb a shorbet? (Is this the dumbest sentence I have ever composed?)
A large mottled shorebird with a long curved beak holding a glob of wet sand walks along the edge of the shore. Pacific Grove, CA December '22
For today's #BirdOfTheDay I submit this Hudsonian whimbrel, who's hoping to find a tasty crustacean in that glob of sand. #BirdsInTheirElement 🪶
Rusted clearwing-satyr - a butterfly whose mostly-clear wings have a red splotch at the back with a false eye in it, making it look like the face of a snake
Clearwings are just the most ridiculous things. We saw one flying down a trail and it looked like a red laser beam (or maybe Tinkerbell?). I'm so glad you ran into one!
I hope you post a bunch more! I am still thinking about being there in January and how much I want to go back.
Fantastic!! I hope you had the very best time.
A white bird with black wingtips, a black swoosh behind the eyes, a red bill, and a long thin tail soars over brilliant blue water
I like today's #BirdOfTheDay theme of #WingsOverWater because it's a nice excuse to transport myself back to Little Tobago with the red-billed tropicbirds. These are colors currently not present in my winter landscape!
A profile of the head and neck of a large black game bird with a red eye and neck skin, blue-black facial skin, and a crest that doesn't quite attain Elvis levels.
For #BirdOfTheDay, here's a crested guan that sat for a #Portrait between its two favorite activities: snatching berries off a tree and menacing its colleagues. 🪶
For #ValentinesDay, a throwback to a piece I wrote about odonate heart-wheels, which for some reason is structured as a game of Ms. Pac-Man. No, it does not make sense to me either. overtonpark.org/blog/naturez...
#BugSky
Boy. This one belongs on a book cover.
A butterfly nearly the size of a human hand perches on a gnarly green stem. It has mottled brown wings with various spots that mimic owl eyes, and its wings have been tattered by bird attacks.
A little something different for #SuperbOwl Sunday this year: an enormous banded owl-butterfly that graced me with its presence in Costa Rica last month. I'm a lover of insects with false eyes and this is one of the very best I've seen.
#BugSky
