SpinyShell's Photo Thread

Phosphene · Jun 25, 2020

So I've discovered a funnel-web spider in my backyard. It's hard to tell the species, but I believe it is either a grass spider or a hobo spider. In this photo, you can see it sitting at the entrance to the funnel part of its web.

A few days after the above photo, I went out to take pictures of it at dusk, and discovered it attacking a winged ant, which I believe was a southern fire ant queen, that had gotten into its web. I've seen these spiders before, but never with prey, so this was kinda neat to see. The spider was more active towards the beginning of the attack. It kept circling the ant, which was vainly trying to escape, and biting it. I didn't see the spider actually eat the ant nor bring it into the funnel, however, when I went to look at the web the next morning, there was no trace of the ant nor a hole in the web so I am assuming the spider ate it. The photos are in chronological order.

To go to something much less creepy and much more cute, I spotted a pair of mourning doves today eating out of one of the bird feeders around my house.

Another bird I spotted today was this hawk, which I believe is either a red tail hawk or a red shouldered hawk. I'm leaning towards it being a red shouldered hawk, but it's hard to tell. As I was photographing it, it was making this sort of seagull-like cry, which was a bit different from the cries I normally hear hawks make--a sort of "ear ear ear" kinda of cry but more "screechy."

Phosphene · Jul 5, 2020

Sorry for the long delay between posts, I was busy with summer school and a bee sting. Anyways...

Tonight me and my dad went out in our backyard with a flashlight and I was able to catch a few photos of two toads which I believe to be California toads (a subspecies of the western toad according to Wikipedia). My father spotted the first toad, but I managed to see the second, whose position I was clued onto when I heard it move in the leaves. There's a third toad in my backyard as well, but I haven't seen it.

A few days ago I was out underneath a pine tree when I heard some high pitched chirping. Perched above me was what appeared to be an oak titmouse. It was so mobile, hoping from branch to branch, that I was only able to get one good photo. They are very cute, very tiny birds.

Speaking of birds in pine trees, I also managed to get a few photos of some finches. I believe the birds in these photos are all lesser goldfinches.

The two finches in the photos below were right above me, which was pretty neat.

Here's some extra photos of the hills somewhat near my house and some plants (unfortunately, I don't know the species of the plants as it is much harder to search for them as I don't think they are local plants).

Edit: The scientific name of the succulent in the top photo is, according to my mother, Plectranthus tomentosa.

Also, here's a link to the imgur post that I made with all the images.

Phosphene · Jul 7, 2020

I've got a couple of photos of a few different butterflies and one moth (which I originally thought was a butterfly), so I decided to post the best pictures all in one post.

The first photo I have is of what I believe to be a mournful duskywing.

The next butterfly is called a common buckeye. I was out in my front yard when I noticed it land on some grass. Upon closer inspection with the camera, I realized its left wing was quite damaged, however, it appeared fully capable of flying.

There's a lot of bright yellow butterflies in my area, and they are rather hard to photograph because they fly very fast and rarely land. I managed to get a somewhat blurry photo of one up close, which I believe is a cloudless sulfur, as well as two images of two of the yellow butterflies in flight. I'm not certain if they are the same species as the first yellow butterfly.

This last photo is of a moth that was quite difficult to identity as I originally thought it was a local butterfly. Turns out it appears to be a species of moth, Glyphodes onychinalis, that, according to Wikipedia, is native to Eastern Asia and Oceania. At first, I thought it had some greenish-white splotches, however, it seems that the white parts of its wings are somewhat translucent.

These next two images are of a hummingbird, which I believe is either an adult female or juvenile. I can't tell the species as, without close inspection, all females and juveniles appear pretty similar to me.

The last images I have for today are of two western fence lizards. You can't see it in the photos, but they have a blueish throat and belly. When I was younger I would try and catch these lizards with my hands or with a bug net.

Imgur post link.

Phosphene · Jul 24, 2020

Sorry for the short hiatus, life was (and still is) just a bit chaotic so I didn't have time to upload photos onto my computer.

Today I spotted a bird that I have been wanting to photograph for a while now: the band-tailed pigeon. Earlier this year they started appearing at the bird feeders around my house for the first time and now they are an uncommon sight. One of them appeared at our bird feeders today so I grabbed the camera pretty quickly because I was so excited to get a chance to photograph one. These pigeons are absolutely massive, I'd have to say twice as large or even bigger than the standard rock pigeons you might see in cities. They are also very timid, so I had to be careful with taking these photos least the pigeon see me and fly off.

Another species of bird that I was excited to photograph were two acorn woodpeckers. Acorn woodpeckers aren't the only woodpecker species in my area, but they are the most common.

To shift gears, I have a couple photos of two insect species that I've spotted in my backyard.

The first couple photos are of a tiny beetle called a small milkweed bug (which I originally misidentified as another bug called a boxelder beetle). Most of the photos are of its back, however, in the last photo you can see the insect's red underbelly. The top two photos were taken a few weeks ago while the bottom two are more recent.

These last two photos are of a wasp which I believe is a western paper wasp, though I could be wrong as I found it a little hard to identity.

imgur post link

Phosphene · Jul 30, 2020

Some more photos.

My mother and I were driving around the neighborhood when we spotted a small bird of prey, a male American kestrel, perched on a power-line. The little bird was doing some stretches, and I got some nice shots of his barred wings and tail.

We also spotted a small ground squirrel (I think it might be a baby or juvenile) near the power-line where the kestrel was, peaking its little head out of a hole in the ground. Oddly, when it spotted us it ran out of the hole and off to some brushes somewhere. My mother loves these squirrels while my father hates them because they eat the food he puts out for the birds.

The last creature I have today is a bumblebee, which I think is a male Van Dyke's bumblebee (there isn't much information on the Internet about this species so I'm not certain). I got really excited when I saw him because I've never seen a bee like him before.

Lastly, I have a few more photos of the dry hills near my house.

imgur post link

Phosphene · Aug 6, 2020

All righty, so I have a few more photos. Unfortunately, the SD card on my camera got corrupted and all the photos on it are most likely lost. Fortunately I managed to save some of the best, and I also have a new SD card and have already taken some good photos on it (which I need to upload onto my computer). At any rate...

The first few images I have today are of what I think is a California scrub jay. They're very beautiful birds with their bright blue plumage (unfortunately it was cloudy when I took these photos).

The next few photos I have are of a squirrel, however, it is not a ground squirrel. Instead it is a type of tree squirrel called a western grey squirrel. I haven't seen many grey squirrels as of late, only ground squirrels, except for this one that climbed into a tree in near my house. This guy was sitting in a low branch, however, when it saw me and my mom it jumped pretty fast to a branch much higher up.

Next, I have several photos of a pretty neat orb weaver spider that I've been meaning to post for a while. I believe the species is Metepeira spinipes, however, I am not certain. This spider had built a cup for itself out of debris and hid in it for most of the day, however, when I went out at dusk I was able to see it in the web. Unfortunately, the web has been knocked down recently and I'm not certain what happened to the spider.

Phosphene · Dec 20, 2020

Alrighty, so it's been a while since I've last posted, but my life has finally calmed down enough where I have time to sit and sift through all my photos. I'd like to note that these photos cover a span from late summer to fall to early winter-ish, so I didn't see all these species, especially the birds, in a close time span. Unfortunately the camera I'm using has developed a glitch: a faint black line arcs through the bottom left of photos, though it's only noticeable against light backgrounds such as the sky so you might see it photos like that.

The first set of photos are of an animal I've wanted to photograph for a long time: a bobcat. One foggy morning when I was washing my hands in the kitchen, I happened to out and see this guy sitting in our yard. We live on a slope so this cat was a bit higher than me. It sat for a few minutes before moving and climbing into the neighbors yard.

The next photos are of a very tiny bird that I believe is a Bewick's wren. These little birds are adorable; they're rather animated and they hop around on their tiny legs.

Another feathery creature that I've managed to capture with my camera is several male Anna's hummingbirds. I've waited out in my yard several times waiting to capture one feeding from our flowers. Depending on the lighting and angle, his crest appears either black or a shade of magenta in color. I think these photos are all of the same individual as one hummingbird seems to have claimed part of our yard as his own, he tends to perch in the same locations.

These next photos are Southern alligator lizards, and the only other species of lizard I see other than fence lizards. The first individual I discovered wrapped up in some plants and the other I found in some sand on the edge of the more mountainous area around my house. The second lizard was slowly moving to some bushes a feet away, but it wasn't walking like a normal lizard. Instead, it was gently pushing its limbs as though it was swimming. Eventually, when I got too close, it shot off into the plants--I imagine it was cautious considering its tail looked like it was still regenerating.

The last photos I have for today are several images of a monarch butterfly. Usually they're pretty hard to photograph as they move very quickly and don't really like to stop on any of the flowers in my yard, so I was very happy to get a glimpse of this guy.

Imgur album link

Phosphene · Feb 2, 2021

So, at the end of December me and my mother went to a nature park--basically a manmade lake + the surrounding areas--just to get out of the house (we wore masks and social distanced, which typically wasn't hard because there was a lot of space). I brought my camera along because I figured I'd see a lot of wildlife, which I did, though they were almost all birds.

The most abundant animal I saw at the park were the American coots, which are colloquially called mudhens. I really like these birds, mainly because their feet look so funny. People would throw food at them, and they'd go crazy, running over to wherever the crumbs or seeds fell, even climbing over each other to get at the food.

This particular individual managed to snag themselves a rather large piece of bread, which they ran off with and were promptly mobbed by gulls.

Speaking of gulls, I also managed to catch a few photos of them as well. I know the gull with its wings closed in the first photo and the gull in the second photo are ring-billed gulls in their winter plumage, but the other birds, including the ones above, I'm not so sure.

I believe the largest waterfowl at the lake were the Canadian geese, who were surprisingly polite.

I also saw lots of ducks: Mallards, introduced Muscovy ducks, and some birds I couldn't identify, possibly feral domestic ducks. Due to the image limit, I could only post a few photos.

There were a couple small Brewer's blackbirds along the shoreline. The females are brown while the males are black.

There were another species of blackbird also along the shore, the red-winged blackbird. I saw almost exclusively males, which are black with red and yellow bands on their wings.

Phosphene · Feb 6, 2021

Here's the second batch of photos from the park.

This little bird was a bit hard for me to identify. I believe it's a spotted sandpiper in nonbreeding plumage, which is significantly less spotted.

I only have two similar photos of the next bird, which I believe is a Say's phoebe.

I also saw a great egret, who was wading along a more secluded area of the park, which unfortunately had some pieces of trash along the bank.

After the egret, I also saw this little bird which I think is a Hutton's vireo among some dry grasses.

Next couple of photos are of an osprey, which I was super excited to see as I've only seen pictures of them. I think this bird might be female due to the brown speckling on the breast, however, I've heard males may also have faint brown speckling so I can't say for certain.

I saw two red-shouldered hawks at the park, one of which was perched in a tree screeching at some red-tailed hawks that were flying around. Me and my mother watched as it flew off after one of the other hawks, chasing it into a tree. After a few minutes, it flew to another tree while the other hawk flew off. Then it joined up with its partner and chased off another red-tailed hawk. Note: the last photo was rather dark, so I adjusted the brightness a little.

Speaking of red-tailed hawks, I also managed to get a few photos of them as well. The first image is of the hawk, which I believe is a juvenile due to the lack of a red tail, that was chased into the tree by the red-shouldered hawk. The rest are of a different individual perched upon a tree, who I also believe is a juvenile or young adult due to having a whitish tail.

I also saw one more type of hawk at the park. I believe this individual is either a juvenile Cooper's hawk or juvenile sharp-shinned hawk, leaning towards the former. This hawk was much smaller than both the red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks. The first three images had their brightness adjusted as they were originally rather dark, to the point the photo looked like it was taken at dusk.

Phosphene · Mar 25, 2021

There's a wash sort of near my house that my mother and I started walking along. Most of the photos here are taken of what we saw near the stream or what we saw on the way. These photos were mostly taken all on separate days.

These photos are of some double-crested cormorants. There's a large pond right before the entrance of the wash, which is where they were resting.

There's a certain segment along the stream that has a bunch of mallards nesting there.

Also near that part of the stream is a bunch of desert cottontail rabbits. There's some tall grass and bushes nearby where they hide.

The next photos are of some western bluebirds. The last photo wasn't taken near the stream, but on our way home.

American crows. The two in the first image were near a great egret, speaking of which...

Here's the egret. It was standing on only one leg, which I thought was pretty impressive.

Phosphene · Apr 25, 2021

I intended to upload these photos with the last batch but I forgot to. These photos were all taken over a several month period with the first two being the most recent. The last two photos were brightened using Photopea.

album link

Phosphene · May 9, 2021

More photos. I'm too lazy to write more descriptive stuff haha.

Acorn woodpeckers

Red-breasted sapsucker

American kestrel (male)

Red-tailed hawks

Juvenile red-tailed hawk or possibly a Harlan's hawk (a subspecies of red-tailed hawk)

Turkey vultures

Album link

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