Hi? (awkwardly)

June 26, 2026 - Japanese Accentor (Prunella rubida) Found in Japan, as well as Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, these accentors live in forests, thickets, scrub, and parks. They eat invertebrates and seeds, foraging mostly on the ground under vegetation and sometimes in trees and bushes. Breeding from May to August, they raise two broods a year. Females breed with multiple males and two males sometimes help females with one brood. They build cup-shaped nests lined with hair, fur, and feathers in low bushes or small pines where females lay clutches of three or four eggs.

(Derbid planthopper, maybe genus Otiocerus)

Unknown Green Lacewing larvae (family Chrysopidae)

i-is it?

(May 19th, 2025)

"mega-cephala" means "big head" but what that leaves out is that said big head is also shaped like a human thyroid. And what benefit is there to having a bow tie shaped noggin? Well, it's theorized that those little nubbins are what help this wasp push their way through their cocoon (and host) when they're done with their pupa nap.

Photo: Saumitra Kelkar, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist 

Both specimens where collected in Northern Sweden in a malaise trap during a large scale insect inventory project.

My fellow bird nerds will understand the breathless excitement I felt to turn a corner in the wetlands and witness this quiet scene! The secretive King Rail is a bird I’ve rarely been able to photograph, let alone film. How cool that my first chance to catch one on video was such a gorgeous and relaxed bird.

Fluted Giant Clam, Coral Bay WA

June 25, 2026 - Dickinson's Kestrel (Falco dickinsoni) These kestrels are found in open savannas in parts of central, eastern, and southern Africa. Usually hunting from a perch, they eat small birds, lizards, insects and other invertebrates, small snakes, rodents, frogs, and bats. They are attracted to bushfires, hunting small birds and insects as they flee. Laying their eggs from July to December, they nest in scrapes in cavities in large trees, palm stumps, or old Hamerkop nests. Females lay clutches of two or three eggs and do most of the incubation while males bring them food. Though males initially bring food for the chicks, both parents later hunt.

look upon the damage you have wrought, son.

Observed by callumevans, CC BY-N