Favoritos de gatorhawk

I present to you: the largest dragonfly in the world, featuring my face for size comparison! :P Photos simply don't convey its sheer size and bulk but hopefully having something for comparison helps.

Anyway, story time! This guy was flying around erratically for at least an hour and a half since we arrived - I assume due to the missing wing half. I hadn't seen it myself but a couple of my friends had, and it somehow hit me in the side of the head and quickly flew off. :P
Anyway, while we were all chilling around the river, it decided to fly straight into the waterfall (in the background in pic 3) and was promptly swept downstream. What else could I do?? I jumped in and chased after it! 😂
As you can tell from the photos, my swim was successful, and I ended up with the most enormous dragonfly I have ever seen right before me. :P I can't even properly describe how enormously huge it was. And those amazing cerci! I gave it some time to dry off, but being humid tropical Queensland, it wasn't happening very quickly. It was more than happy to sit on my hand and so I wondered if it would prefer somewhere a bit higher and drier :P
So that is how it ended up on my face! As it dried and we were plagued by march flies, the obvious solution was to give him one to eat. He accepted it gratefully and somehow ate the entire thing in a single bite. Hopefully that goes a way into showing just how huge and formidable these guys are! Not content, he then sliced his huge mandibles into my nose -_- and had to be gently prized off. He slowly lapped up blood for a while after but luckily didn't do any more biting! If I squint in the mirror I can still see a faint line there now :P
He sat for about an hour before we had to leave and I left him on a shrub. I hope he was okay with half a wing missing, but there wasn't much else I could do. All in all one of the best experiences of my life! :D

First photo is by Haley Harding because I am incapable of taking selfies :P

Photo 1
My Cat Found Me A Lifer
Sasha let me know there was a bug outside the patio door. She is not happy with me. Instead of letting her out to get the bug, I grabbed my camera, went outside and took a couple of shots. I am happy with her because it turned out to be a new kind of moth for me.
Photo 2
Took a close up of my new kind of moth. They fly from Sept to Nov. And you can tell where the name comes from, that bottom line is definitely bent.

id confirmed in bugguide here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/2200435

I went outside to go for a walk, picked up one of my boots, and started to put it on. They're almost too small, so I had to do some wiggling to get my foot in. I often don’t wear socks in my shoes, which I think was a good thing in this case. My foot was most of the way in when it touched something furry. I froze, trying to figure out what it was. It didn’t move either. Then I yanked my foot back out and looked inside, and there was a little rodent in there! I pinched the top of the boot shut before it could escape, then called to my mom that I needed my camera right now and I probably shouldn’t come in the house because I was holding a boot with a rat in it. She brought my camera out and I took some adorable pictures before it ran back into the toe. Then I dumped it out and it ran away.

Caught and released safely. Wrapped itself quite a bit in the fishing line but went ahead and rope wrapped the bill and cut all fishing line off fish and removed hook. The gills, spiracles, and fish were never removed from water during the process and whole release. Once fish was free of all line idled the boat into the current to have water flow over the gills, fished showed good strength , removed rope wrap and he swam off great. Ate a cut lady fish on the bottom, was fishing for redfish, probably close to 5-6 foot in length including the bill. Not an intentional catch but definitely an interesting one.

The Osprey dove and caught a fish. Almost immediately the Bald Eagle materialized and pursued the Osprey (Osprey Observation here). I didn't see the outcome because almost simultaneously, a Least Bittern flushed near my feet. The bittern was a lifer so I had to get it! This was all within a few minutes of leaving my car, so I knew it would be a good day!

October Big Day birding at Phinizy Swamp Nature Park, Richmond County, Georgia. October 8, 2022.

• Mostly sunny, with a high near 80.
• Sunrise 7:27 am; Sunset 7:03 pm
• Daylight Hours: 11 hours, 36 minutes (-2m 1s)
• Moon: 98.1% Waxing Gibbous
• Fifty-two bird species in one location! https://ebird.org/checklist/S120404524

Exner Marsh Nature Preserve; McHenry County, Illinois. July 17, 2022.

• Mostly cloudy, with a high near 79.
• Sunrise 5:32 am; Sunset 8:26 pm
• Daylight Hours:14 hours, 54 minutes (-1m 32s)
• Moon: 80.5% Waning Gibbous

http://williamwisephoto.com/photographyblog/exner-marsh-nature-preserve
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/exner-marsh-nature-preserve-illinois

Red-tailed Hawk pursuing a Golden Eagle (observation is for the eagle). Incredible size comparison; the usually large looking Red-tail looks like a tiny hawk.

Park City mountain trails, Utah.

• Mostly sunny, with a high near 80.
• Sunrise 6:19 am; Sunset 8:45 pm
• Daylight Hours: 14 hours, 26 minutes (-1m 53s)
• Moon: 0.2% Waxing Crescent

Spotted by Gonzalo! I had been wanting to see one for years... thanks, dude!

Snorkeling along the jetty and around the beach at South Pointe with Gonzalo, Benjamin and Jasmine. Visibility was excellent closer to shore but wasn't so great further out. The water just seemed a bit hazy/smoky/foggy (not sure how else to describe it) as we got to around 10ft+ depth swimming east along the jetty. We swam about 250m, a little less than halfway down the jetty, before turning around. There was a full moon and we were swimming during slack high tide according to tides4fishing.com. Winds have been out of the South for the past several days and there was little sargassum on the beach.

Highlights were a small electric ray and gulf flounder on the sandy bottom. Jasmine unfortunately got stung by one of the little jellyfish that come out at night (this one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/123714438 )
but thankfully the sting wasn't too bad.

All my observations from tonight: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-07-12&place_id=any&user_id=joemdo&verifiable=any

All my night snorkeling observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?order=asc&order_by=observed_on&place_id=any&user_id=joemdo&verifiable=any&field:Night%20Dive=yes

Alligator capture-tag-release program on Bear Island, 1996. See the online journal at www.williamwisephoto.com.

That's me (not a sasquatch) on an alligator capture-tag-release program on Bear Island WMA, SC in the spring/summer of 1996. I loved gators before this day, but was totally hooked after holding my first juvenile and feeling the growl of an adult as I sat on her to be tagged (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18369794). That weekend started my alligator addiction. See the online journal at www.williamwisephoto.com.

Note distinctive very long pinkish bill; dark brown iris; dark eyestripe; pale supercilium; rusty-brown upperparts; buff flanks. I was absolutely thrilled when I found this one singing in the elephant grass. I also managed to get a good audio clip of it singing. According to Cornell Lab, this critically endangered bird was estimated in 2007 to be around 2,742 individuals on two islands.