News is pretty scant as it’s just the same-old same-old, but I have a few stray wildlife photos to exhibit today. I’m all out of photos excerpt for these, so please send in your good wildlife snaps. In all the photos below, readers’ captions are indented and, as always, you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
First, from Scott Ritchie, his favorite photograph of Australia’s golden-shouldered parrot (Psephotellus chrysopterygius), an endangered species and the world’s only parrot that lives in termite mounds.
Bob Jochums sent two photos of Barred owls (Strix varia) taken outside Atlanta, Georgia.
A family “portrait” (minus Papa) on the “veranda” of the nest box.
An earlier photo of Mama leaving the nest box to get a little time to herself … or to hunt for food or nuzzle with Papa.
From Claudia Baker:
Red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), picking at the rail fence along the front of my property, in Eastern Ontario, in July 2023. I have never seen one around here before, so was quite excited to get pictures of it. Can’t tell if it’s male or female, as the sexes are similar. It is the only eastern woodpecker with an entire head that is red. Their range is East of the Rockies from southern Canada to the Gulf states. They apparently will hide foot in crevices of wood and return for it later, so maybe this is what it was doing. In any case, it dug around in this rail fence for awhile, long enough for me to get several pictures.
It will hide insects and seeds in cracks in wood, under bark, in fenceposts, and under roof shingles. Grasshoppers are regularly stored alive, but wedged into crevices so tightly that they cannot escape. It has many nicknames, including half-a-shirt, jellycoat, flag bird and the flying checker-board. I read that the Red-headed woodpecker was the “spark bird” (bird that starts a person’s interest in birds) of legendary ornithologist Alexander Wilson in the 1700s.
I did not know that there are worms in my rail fencing. Or maybe this worm was hidden by this gorgeous bird earlier and it came to claim its lunch.
Red-headed woodpeckers are fierce defenders of their territory. They may remove the eggs of other species from nest and nest boxes, destroy other birds’ nests and even enter duck nest boxes and puncture the duck eggs. (!) Quite mean for so beautiful a bird!I have not seen another since this one in 2023. The oldest Red-headed woodpecker on record was banded in 1926 in Michigan and lived to be at least 9 years, 11 months old.
My friend Cate, to her surprise and wonder, found white leucistic squirrels (a genetic variant of the Eastern Gray Squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis) living around her summer house in Michigan. There are several more photos in this thread, including the famous white squirrels of Olney, Illinois. which are albinos.
You won’t believe this even exists but up here in Ludington, Michigan there are at least TWO entirely white squirrels, NOT albinos–I saw two of them, many miles apart, last year. And now there’s one in my yard! 1/8 pic.twitter.com/LHfbFhvAOi
— Roseland, Chicago: 1972 (@RoselandChi1972) May 10, 2026
It seems like the white squirrels might be new around here, because last year the year-round neighbors looked at me strange when I asked about them. This year, there have been other sightings, and one neighbor expressed envy that I got one in my yard. 3/8 pic.twitter.com/JOkUomJr6f
— Roseland, Chicago: 1972 (@RoselandChi1972) May 10, 2026
From Peggy Mason in Canada (see location at bottom):
These harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) were lying around on the rocks of Poise Island in Porpoise Bay in Sechelt, BC, Canada. There were five of them. They ranged from silvery white (the smallest, a baby I think) to black with some white markings.
This is the silvery white baby:
This is the very black one:
Here is the silvery white baby, possibly with its mother. That is what I thought – basically from their proximity and size difference – although I received no confirmatory data one way or the other on this:
Bonus pictures are a beautiful bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), a juvenile judging by its coloring and some pretty pink flowers on Poise Island.:
And Peggy’s location:
