Favoritos de raymie

This male mountain lion - a migrant from South Dakota - was infamously struck 41-miles east of Greenwich, CT. This was the first verifiable documentation of a cougar in Connecticut since the 1890s. The attributed location and time is from where it was struck by a car. There is no breeding population of cougars in New England, though they historically occupied every continental US state.

Photos supplied with permission from the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (CT DEEP), Wildlife Division, courtesy of Cyndy Chanaca.
Individual photo credentials: Paul J. Fusco/ CT DEEP-Wildlife

Further reading:

• Mountain Lions in Massachusetts: Distinguishing Fiction from the Facts by Tom French
• Confirmed Reports of Mountain Lions in Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife (archived from the original)
• Genetic Testing Reveals Mountain Lion Killed in Milford Originated in South Dakota by CT DEEP (archived from the original)

All I knew when I saw this grasshopper was that I'd never seen one like it before. Turned out I had, the tiny green one grandson Everett caught in June was a younger version of this one. This is a middle stage of the prairie boopie grasshopper. My 2nd of this species. I want to find an adult next, they are black.

Female
id confirmed on bugguide here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/2267328 @tfandre

Newt swimming in pristine White Rock Lake in the Santa Lucia mountains. Link to observation of Trout swimming above it for size comparison: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/163748610.
Link to confirmed observation of California Newt nearby: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/163716460

California Newt (Taricha torosa) Endemic in California. Newts are amphibians. They are related to salamanders (in a subfamily called Pleurodelinae). Their skin tends to be rougher than the skin of salamanders. The California newt has warty, slate-gray skin on its back and bright orange-yellow skin underneath. It is very similar in appearance to the rough-skinned newt and they are often indistinguishable without dissection, but in general, the California newt has orange skin around the bottom of its eye while the Rough-skinned has gray skin at the bottom of its eye. The California newt also has eyes that protrude beyond the edge of the jaw line when viewed from above, while the eyes of the rough-skinned do not protrude, giving its head a more bullet-like appearance.

Distribution of the Four Species of Newts in California, Showing Overlapping Ranges: https://californiaherps.com/identification/salamandersid/newts.html

https://californiaherps.com/salamanders/pages/t.torosa.html

Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California: https://californiaherps.com

https://www.herpmapper.org/taxon/Taricha_torosa

Insane and 100% unprecedented vagrant to the Midwest. Potentially the first of its species to ever perch in Acer saccharum, Vitis riparia, Rhus typhina, Juglans nigra, etc… Or to be in the immediate presence of a Black-capped Chickadee or Iceland Gull

On August 11, 2021, we were eating at home and this bird, House Sparrow, flew into the house and landed on the TV cabinet.
Always around 3pm we throw the leftover bread crumbs from the meal on the balcony and the same number of birds always come, this bird was not afraid of us and went inside the house. It did not get scared when we passed by and left when it wanted to.