ezra_isolover's Favorites

This was a wild scene! Three small gray squirrels were VERY aggravated by this large land crab. When I encountered them, three squirrels were around the crab in crouched, aggressive positions with tails curled and flicking. They would take turns getting close but never quite making contact. Eventually they moved the crab to the driveway where one squirrel remained aggressively following it.

This little naked crab was clinging for dear life to a piece of stranded seaweed. It was alive and well but such a tasty little morsel for any passing predator. Nearby was the cloaking Anemone Adamsia palliata but tightly constricted so as not to be photogenic - seen in Picture 1.
It is rare to see this crab exposed like this. I offered it a few shells, not realising at the time that this was no ordinary Hermit Crab.

On my 3rd day working on this project a I recorded a group of around 20 to 30 juveniles Whiprays resting under a Mangrove tree's shade at high tide.

I spent a couple of hours in the water with them being very still until they seemed to got used to the click on my shutter, some were less shy than others and were happy to be very very close to the camera.

I uploaded a video of the sounds made here:

https://youtu.be/D74INfJAVgk

UPDATE JULY 2022

A paper has now been published based on this observation, Elasmobranchs no longer the silent residents of the sea. We the 1st evidence of not one but TWO species of stingray actively producing sounds doi.org/10.1002/ecy.38

with more than 50 juvenile fish calling it home

In the 3rd photo note the centre of the jelly has an inter-dimensional vortex that enables time-travelling and travelling to other universes.

Only fish can use this though and when the oceans become too polluted all of the fish will use these to leave the earth to oceans far beyond.

A major discovery for me; with no reports of live specimens since 2007 - I was able to locate a population living at 1680 masl. The species appears to be fossorial, therefore extremely hard to spot. Unfortunately the location is a small relict of privately-owned cloud forest, surrounded by cattle fields.

These eggs were laid in care from a dragon hit by a truck. She had a serious laceration to her forearm requiring suturing and laid 11 eggs a few days later. They were transferred to an incubator and all hatched - they were very premature due to the stress on the mother and hatched about a month overdue (which fits with the size and condition of the eggs). All of the babies were released a few days later once self-feeding.

Number 745 (though it just shows 45 on the other wing). The CVs are at https://www.nps.gov/pinn/learn/nature/profiles.htm Photo taken from the high peaks trail just south of where the big rock tries to push one over the edge.

June 30, 2020 update: Since these bird are tracked through their life span, I was curious to find out how it is doing. It's wing tag was replaced with a green one and its head now is now featherless and an orange hue. The web page at https://www.nps.gov/pinn/learn/nature/condors-with-green-tags.htm says:
745
Hatched: 3/25/14 from a wild nest in Los Padres National Forest
Sex: Male
Parents: Condor 310 and Ventana Wildlife Society condor 219
Fun Fact: Quickly made friends with the rest of the flock once he learned to fly and followed his parents to Pinnacles and Big Sur

White Rock lake, Sunset Bay
Photo story
Photo 1:
Well Hello There
Tracey & I were at the lake and there was a juvenile grackle that approached Tracey. I gave Tracey the bag of bird seed I had with me and she fed the baby. She sat down & it came right up to her.
Photo 2:
Would You Like Some Peanuts?
I have never seen a juvenile grackle ask people for food and be hand fed before. Possibly something happened to its mother. In the bottom left corner you can see a rock dove also interested in the food.
Photo 3:
Don't Worry, You Don't Have To Share With The Rock Dove
The dove was making the baby grackle a bit nervous.

Photo 4:
Here's Some More
It seems to be focused on Tracey as she talks quietly to it.
Photo 5:
Careful, That's A Big Bite
Junior has a beak full of bird seed & Tracey looks like she is cautioning Junior to take smaller bites.
Photo 6:
You're So Brave
Such a brave bird. We ended up leaving a small pile of birdseed on the ground and went on our way. I had never seen anything like it with a wild grackle.

A green chiton attached to a half crab. We observed this alien looking commensal beast while undertaking an intertidal survey on the reefs off Hawera. It made us jump when we first turned over the rock.