Animal Log of your native fauna

[bmathison1972]

I walked up City Creek Canyon. According to my eBird app, I was birding for 5.03 hours over 7.97 miles. This is what I documented:

1. mallard
2. rock dove
3. downy woodpecker (new species for me)
4. northern flicker
5. Woodhouse's scrub-jay
6. black-billed magpie
7. American crow
8. black-capped chickadee
9. Pacific wren (new species for me; apparently very rare here with a relict population in northern Utah. Ran into another birder who was up there specifically for it and I helped him find it!)
10. American dipper (possibly two individuals, based on where they were seen)
11. Townsend's solitaire (new species for me)
12. American robin
13. house finch
14. pine siskin (new species and tentative ID; at first I thought it was a female goldfinch, but it looked too 'robust')
15. dark-eyed junco
16. song sparrow
17. spotted towhee

[Isidro]

Yesterday was interesting. I saw:

-Common pigeon
-Wood pigeon
-Collared dove
-Common serin
-House sparrow
-Blackcap (a male)
-European goldfinch
-Common magpie
-Western jackdaw
-Mallard
-Little egret
-Great cormorant
-Yellow-legged gull
-bluebottle blowfly (Calliphora vicina)
-honeybee (first of the year)
-common garden snail (Cornu aspersum)
-small cabbage white (Pieris rapae)

and one day before I saw an interesting hoverfly: Myathropa florea. This species is interesting to me because it follows the reverse way of most of the insects in my zone: extremely scarce during my childhood, and in last years it became abundant. Something that is unexpected to happen in a native species like that one.

[bmathison1972]

Hmmm...makes me wonder if the Papo snail is actually Cornu aspersum rather than H. pomotia

[JimoAi]

I spotted a long tail macaque and a malayan water monitor

[Isidro]

Hmmm...makes me wonder if the Papo snail is actually Cornu aspersum rather than H. pomotia

Absolutely nope.

Cornu aspersum


Papo's rendition of Helix pomatia


Helix pomatia


Honestly, I think that Bullyland vineyard/roman snail is better than Papo one, but clearly both intend to represent this species (absent from my country, except some local introductions I think)

[bmathison1972]

Thanks, I am not personally familiar with either species. Although I don't think random Google search images are very supportive. It could easily go either way, and looking at the shell shape from multiple angles (which I can do, because I have it in-hand) and number of whorls, C. aspersum might be a better fit!

I also think Bully is better, but Papo is a better size and more readily available.

[Isidro]

Although I don't think random Google search images are very supportive.

These were my images, not google images 

Based on colour of the shell, strenght of the growth lines sculpt, size of foot relative to size of shell, and size of the bumps of the foot, for me it's very clearly modelled after a roman, vineyard or edible snail, Helix pomatia (the most conspicuous and well known land snail in France by the way, due to big size and being extremely common even near urban areas). Even would be if Papo don't market it as such species (but it does, not?)

[bmathison1972]

Oh wow those are your images. Very nice.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. You've seen both species in person, which I have not.  Very helpful.

[Isidro]

Both species are very common in Europe. So not surprising to have photos of both. Collecting my own photos of lifeforms has been and is my passion since much before collecting figurines (and much more exhaustive), so I have much more meritory photos than those shown above. Currently I have 21983 different species of lifeforms photographed (altough I include also about a 5% that is photographed by my parents instead me).

[Lanthanotus]

Both species are very common in Europe. So not surprising to have photos of both. Collecting my own photos of lifeforms has been and is my passion since much before collecting figurines (and much more exhaustive), so I have much more meritory photos than those shown above. Currently I have 21983 different species of lifeforms photographed (altough I include also about a 5% that is photographed by my parents instead me).

That sounds like a nice hobby, @Isidro . I have taken a lot of photos of animals, plants and fungi in my life, but never really took a count, nevertheless I guess the number of spotted species outnumbers the shot ones. I like  a "real hunt" for a picture it, extended searching or spotting the subject from a distance and then getting close without disturbing it to get a good shot. Though I have to say, lately birding got some sort of a passion and I just take my binoculars rather than a camera. Now, maybe I short sort through my photos and start counting, you gave me an idea....

[bmathison1972]

I always had a desire to get into photography, but I don't need another expensive hobby.

I have taken a lot of pics of parasites under the microscope LOL. Most are on the DPDx website when I worked at the CDC or in various publications.

I have a lot of pictures of click beetles  and they'll be published in my upcoming book, the Elateridae of the Southeastern United States

[Lanthanotus]

I always had a desire to get into photography, but I don't need another expensive hobby.

I have taken a lot of pics of parasites under the microscope LOL. Most are on the DPDx website when I worked at the CDC or in various publications.

I have a lot of pictures of click beetles  and they'll be published in my upcoming book, the Elateridae of the Southeastern United States

That sounds very...... specific..... it sure will be a bestseller amongst entomologists

[Isidro]

Most true scientific works, and basically all entomological works, are such specific or more. Only this level of precision allow to be enough exhaustive in the science world and more especifically in entomology.

Photos of parasites (of animals) are a noticeable gape in my photo archive, as I never used none kind of microscope or binocular microscope for photography. I have only photos of a couple of lice, one flea (preserved in a museum), a fish-tongue-eating isopod (in another museum), and... I think nothing more

Unlike collecting figurines, that's not an expensive hobby. Unless you really want to be more professional than me, get a better camera and make better photos

[Lanthanotus]

Oh I was quite serious about that, sorry if it came along as a quip. While I am not a paid professional, I did and do a lot of work on reptiles and try to give my best to be scientific in it, so my library includes a number of very specific works - just not about beetles.

[bmathison1972]

I did the same 8ish mile walk I did last weekend. Last night we had a little layer of snow and it snowed periodically during the walk, so a different make-up of birdies.

I saw:
wild turkey
mallard
red-tailed hawk
northern flicker
downy woodpecker
acorn woodpecker (new species for me)
black-billed magpie
American robin
dark-eyed junco
American dipper
ruby-crowned kinglet (new species for me, tentative ID)
house sparrow
song sparrow
black-capped chickadee

among mammals:
coyote
fox squirrels

[Isidro]

Today a disfraceful wildlife sight was happened. I was in the kitchen of my parents house, helping to prepair the food. I stepped on something that was in the floor. Maybe a fallen bottlecap or something similar. I looked what thing was it for waste it or recover whatever is it. But is not a bottlecap, nor an almond, nor any other of the usual things that are normally found fallen in the floor of my parent's kitchen. It was a beetle. And not a common simple unexciting beetle. It was a special beetle. A rosechafer, of the species Protaetia cuprea. This is a species I never saw before in my city. And I only saw before three more individuals in my whole life, always in very distant places to my city, and two of them already dead (one drowned, the other dead in the soil). So I only saw one alive individual of this species in my whole life and I think it was in 2003... 18 years ago!!!! And I can't count this one as a sight neither. It was already killed... by me... by the time I was able to spot it. It was disgusting. I would not mind very much if the victim was for example the abundant Protaetia morio... but why a magnific Protaetia cuprea?? All that I was able to see is a cracked jewel (the crack is in the pronotum), full of cream-coloured hemolimph spurting out in the underside.

[Lanthanotus]

Aww, a real pity that unfortunately reminds me, that I cut the common lilac in our garden down into the old wood to make it grow better an thicker. However, it looks like it did not like the cutting and may just survive but maybe not bloom this year. Which would be a real pity, as we got hundreds of larvae of the rosechafer Cetonia aurata in our compost heap, but the imagines feed on the lilac :/

[Gwangi]

Did some field herping today with the primary goal of finding a spotted turtle, and sure enough, I did. These beautiful turtles are the highlight of any herping trip in which they're found. Also found a red-backed salamander, and lots of southern leopard, and New Jersey chorus frogs.

Red-backed salamander


Southern leopard frogs


New Jersey chorus frogs


Spotted turtle








Also, here's a sharp-shinned hawk I saw roosting on one of my lawn flamingos.

[JimoAi]

Managed to spot an esturine crocodile

[Advicot]

First chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) seen in 2021 today, he was the most beautiful male I've seen in a long time, in the UK chaffinches are becoming much less common . I remember when all you could hear in the midsummer afternoons were chaffinches with their gorgeous song.

I may be going off topic on my own topic, but I saw the first dandelion of 2021 blooming today, and also lots of lesser celandine under my shrub roses and camellias.

Should we include observations of plants, too? Any feedback would be appreciated