Category: mammals

Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow

February 2, 2026 • 9:00 am

Over in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, they dragged out a groggy groundhog (Marmota monax), Punxsutawney Phil, from his wooden-box den, and determined whether he could see his shadow.

He did, and that means that we have six more weeks of winter weather to come.  Is that any surprise?

Below is a short video in which Phil is forced to look at a piece of paper. Who knows if he actually saw his shadown, but the top-hatted flacks, members of the so-called “Inner Circle” who interpret Phil’s predictions, did.

But looking at Phil’s history, the rodent is not accurate at predicting the long-term weather:

The Inner Circle claims a 100% accuracy rate, and an approximately 80% accuracy rate in recorded predictions. If a prediction is wrong, they claim that the person in charge of translating the message must have made a mistake in their interpretation. Empirical estimates place the groundhog’s accuracy between 35% and 41%.

So it goes.  It’s a groundhog, for crying out loud, not a weatherman. And the Inner Circle is a religion. . . .

 

Reader’s wildlife video

January 31, 2026 • 8:15 am

Praise Ceiling Cat: reader Tara Tanaka, photographer and videographer extrodinaire, has returned with an awesome video featuring both cats and d*gs (well, a bobcat and coyotes). Tara filmed it from her living room in Florida (Tara and her husband own a large tract of wetland).  Tara’s Flickr page is here and her Vimeo page is here.

Tara’s Vimeo notes, which assure us that this is genuine:

“A Bobcat’s Encounter with Two Coyotes (Not AI)”

We had seen one or two coyotes around 9:30 the last two mornings. Hoping they would return for a third day I got my camera ready in the living room to try to record them. About 9:00 my husband said he saw one, so I made some final adjustments for the lighting and began to search for something moving in the distance. When I finally centered the subject in the viewfinder, I said “I think I’m looking at a bobcat.” Almost immediately the cat stood up and as I panned with it I was shocked when two coyotes ran into the frame, one on each side of the cat. Enjoy the interactions between the two species and between the very bonded pair of coyotes. I believe the female is pregnant.

After I finished filming I just sat in disbelief that I had had the opportunity to record something so unique – and from my living room! I feel like I could have gone to Yellowstone and spent a month in the field and not witnessed an encounter like this. Because of the dramatic temperature difference between the thawing ground and the sun heating the brown grass, the waves of heat shimmer intensified as the sun got higher and you can see them rippling across the screen. Despite the extreme conditions, I was thrilled that I was able to record the interaction so clearly from 1000′ away, and through a double-paned window.

We should have a pond full of water with waders arriving to nest right now, however due to a severe drought that started over a year ago, the entire swamp is dry. Without water to allow our large alligators to patrol under the nests and protect them from predators, I’m afraid that our hundreds of waders that nest here every year will not feel safe and will likely nest elsewhere.

Filmed with a Panasonic GH6 + Nikon 500mm f2.8 lens. Since I filmed it from inside the house, I used the audio from a video I shot from the yard last year.

The bobcat and coyotes don’t seem to mind each other, though the bobcat eventually climbs partway up a tree. Be sure to enlarge the video and put the sound up to hear the birds singing.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 24, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today Friend of the Website Greg Mayer contributes some photos from Britain.

by Greg Mayer

Since we’re awaiting a recharge of the tank of Readers’ Wildlife Photos, I thought I’d add a few wildlife photos from a recent trip to England. I did not bring my good camera with a telephoto lens, since the visit was focused on museums in London, and the photos reflect this constraint.

The only mammal we saw in London was the introduced Gray Squirrel, but in Oxfordshire we saw molehills (made by the European Mole, Talpa europea) in and near the churchyard of St. Margaret of Antioch in Binsey. American moles most prominently make much less elevated runs or tracks, not distinct hillocks like these, so the phrase “making a mountain out of a molehill” makes more sense to me now.

Part of Oxford University, Wytham Woods (a famed area for ecological studies) had some Sheep (Ovis aries) in an enclosure. These are domesticated, and the species was brought to Britain thousands of years ago.

In London, we encountered two more corvids. The Carrion Crow (Corvus corone corone) is the most like what is, to an American, a “normal” crow. (During a brief stop in Copenhagen on the way to England, we also saw a Hooded Crow, Corvus corone cornix, which has a gray body, and has a long hybrid zone with the Carrion Crow, )

The other corvid was the Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica), which is much more “crow-y” looking than the jays in America (which are also corvids). We also saw Rooks (Corvus fragileus) on the trip, but got no photos.

Note the blue on the wings of this Magpie.

Like the Carrion Crow above, also on the Victoria Embankment was a Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ribundus); this is an adult in winter plumage. We saw quite a few gulls all around London. Most were larger than this (Larus sp. or spp.), but we could not ID them.

On the way to Greenwich by boat on the Thames, we saw Mute Swans (Cygnus olor), which I include here to show the great tidal range of the Thames, ca. 7 m, evident from the algal growth on the bulkhead behind the pair of swans.

Also on the Thames we saw Great Cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo), including a pale-bellied juvenile.

We were struck by how the apartments along the south bank of the Thames resembled scenes from movies, for example A Fish Called Wanda, and sure enough, the building at the left of the photo above is indeed where the Cleese-Curtis “canoodling” rendezvous took place!

The bird we saw more of than any other in England was the pigeon. Not the Common Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus), like this one in Greenwich, which we saw a fair number of. . .

. . . but the Feral Pigeon or “rock dove” (Columba livia), which was everywhere, both city and country.  There were many of the highly variable domestic color forms, such as this one

. . . . and some of the “wild type”, which is the color pattern of the ancestral wild Rock Doves.

Wild Rock Doves persist in Scotland and western Ireland; all the pigeons we saw in London and Oxfordshire were feral.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 22, 2026 • 9:15 am

Well, we’ve run out of photos from readers and I am heartbroken again. BUT we still have the third and final batch of photos from Cairns resident Scott Ritchie, summarizing his best photos of 2025.  Scott’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  Scott’s Facebook page is here.

Warning cuteness ahead! Here’s a couple of mammals from my Western Australia trip. A Honey Possum [Tarsipes rostratus] feeding on a Scarlet Banksia at Cheynes Beach.

It even more cuteness. A numbat [Myrmecobius fasciatus] searches for his nest hollow. This was taken it Dryandra Forest National Park, Western Australia:

I like my ducks and he’s not the prettiest one, but I love his weirdness. The Musk Duck [Biziura lobata]. This male has this weird leather pouch under his chin and the tail feathers like a crown of the Statue of Liberty. And he likes laying on his back like a sea otter. Very cool beast. This was taken in Albany, Westerrn Australia:

I love my fairywrens. They’re usually extremely beautiful but before they grow up, they’re sort of brownish birds designed to blend in with the bush. This is a young male Splendid Fairywren [Malurus splendens] in eclipse phase, just starting to grow his beautiful blue feathers. You can just see them around his eye. This photo gives us a hint of what’s to come. Pemberton Western Australia:

And here’s the Splendid Fairyrwen in full eclipse mode singing is heart out. I love the blue and gray patchwork. It reminds me of a flannel shirt I have:

“in case you’re wondering what I look like in full costume, here it is!” Male Splendid Fairywren, Nannup, Western Australia.

I was really fortunate to run across a group of Baudin’s Black Cockatoos [Zanda baudinii] near Pemberton. A very endangered and magnificent parrot:

A Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo [Zanda funerea] navigates through the forest. This bird was part of a group that had been warned to flee in response to an incoming sea-eagle. Most cockatoos post sentries to stand guard while the others feed:

A sentry male Crimson Rosella [Platycercus elegans] in a Gumtree forest in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria:

I really taken to capturing wider views, “birdscapes”. They allow you to appreciate the birds and their natural environment. Here’s a group of Great Knots [Calidris tenuirostris] and a Great Egret [Ardea alba] at sunrise on the Cairns Esplanade:

I really love Red-tailed Black Cockatoos [Calyptorhynchus banksii]. It was great to get this male in flight with his tail spread so that you can appreciate his lovely red panels. It was also cool to get him flying across the rainforest in the rain. An iconic north Queensland moment:

Spring is rebirth. And here a group of Radjah Shelducks [Radjah radjah], mother, father and their nine little ducklings, cruise across Freshwater Lake in Cairns. I call this a duck love train:

And finally, our local Rufus Owls, after several nest failures, managed to produce a chick. This young fledgling Rufous Owl [Ninox rufa] cautiously sticks his head out the late evening light, looking for his parents to come and feed him. These birds had survived harassment by waves of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos that wanted to take over the nesting hollow. However, the owls were staunch in their defense, and eventually the chick fledged and left the nest. A end of year treat for all us local birders!:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 21, 2026 • 8:15 am

Well, this is the last batch of photos I have, so you know what to do.

Today’s contribution is from Ephraim Heller, this time with photos from America rather than Brazil. Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

It has been a busy January on the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park.

After a warm early winter, a few weeks ago we finally had a hard freeze. A branch of the Snake River froze solid. However, there is a location where a warm spring feeds into the branch and this inlet stayed open. Hundreds of Utah sucker fish (Catostomus ardens) were trapped in this area of open water surrounded by ice, isolated from the main body of the Snake River. Naturally, this provided a smorgasbord for the local bald eagles and coyotes.

As I observed the Utah suckers at various times of day, I noticed that in the late afternoon they would all rise to the surface and expose their dorsal fins. Intrigued, I queried my AI which informed me that this is a matter of oxygen dynamics:

  • The warm water holds less oxygen than cold water, and thermal springs typically have low dissolved oxygen content due to high temperatures.
  • In confined areas with high fish density, oxygen is rapidly depleted.
  • Fish respond to low oxygen levels by “piping” or “aquatic surface respiration” (ASR) when oxygen levels drop below critical thresholds. This behavior involves positioning at the water surface with mouths/dorsal fins exposed to access the oxygen-rich surface layer. This behavior indicates that the fish are stressed.

However, the AI also stated that “Aquatic plants produce oxygen through photosynthesis during daylight, with peak production in late afternoon. At night, plants consume oxygen through respiration. Dissolved oxygen levels are highest in late afternoon and lowest just before dawn.” This doesn’t seem consistent with the timing I observed.

I don’t know how much of this is true vs. AI hallucination, but it sounds plausible to me. I’d appreciate it if the ichthyologists and limnologists among the readers would confirm or refute this story.

Now for the photos:

Here are the Utah sucker fish at the surface of the open water pool in the evening, trapped by the surrounding ice:

Here is a close up of the fish at the surface:

Every so often the fish would go into a frenzy at the surface. I don’t know why. It was unrelated to anything I saw happening at the surface. Here is a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) watching the frenzy and assessing his menu options:

Having made up his mind, the eagle helps himself to a serving of fresh fish:

The common ravens (Corvus corax) have found a lovely rotting fish. Instead of exerting the effort to catch a fresh fish, this eagle has decided that it is easier to steal the carrion:

Bald eagles are kleptoparasites, so when an eagle with energy and initiative catches a fish the other eagles won’t let him dine in peace:

Ravens are smart birds. This one is surely thinking “If those eagle ignoramuses can catch a fish then surely I can do it better.” Unfortunately for him, the fish got away:

In spite of their inability to fish, common ravens are handsome birds:

To my surprise, the North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) who live half a mile downstream have not been dining at the buffet. I think it is because this branch of the river is frozen solid and the otters don’t like traveling on the ice surface for long distances without the safety of accessible water. So I donned my cross country skis and visited them at another, unfrozen branch of the Snake River. They, too, were feasting on Utah suckers:

Also on the river are trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator) in the morning mist:

Trumpeters need a long runway to take off. These four are just starting to accelerate:

Once airborne they are graceful:

Finally, this old-time general store sits adjacent to the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park. In this star trail time lapse, the stars are, of course, circling Polaris, the north star. The Tetons are to the left of the store:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 17, 2026 • 8:15 am

Thank Ceiling Cat that two readers came through with photos yesterday. Today’s batch includes not butterflies but vertebrates, and is from  Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistics professor at Oklahoma State University, and his wife Sreemala. The pair share a big bird-and-butterfly website called Wingmates. Their captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The river otter images from a recent reader’s wildlife photos section inspired me to put together this batch of photos from our fall trip to Southeast Oklahoma when we stumbled upon a group of river otters. Otters, in general, are my favorites due to their fun characters and cool behaviors. However, I was never been able to see North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) close enough to get good enough photos until this encounter.

We (my wife Sreemala and I) were hiking along the river just after sunrise with the hope of finding some cool critters while also enjoying the beautiful foggy atmosphere and the fall foliage. Only a few other people were out at that time. A lady who was coming back greeted us, and noticing our long telephoto lenses, told us that she saw some animals floating on the water that looked like rats. We immediately got excited thinking they must be otters since the other “rat-like” animals such as muskrats or beavers would be pretty unlikely in the fast-flowing stream in that area. River otters, on the other hand, especially enjoy the fast flow and the cascades. Within a few minutes, we were able to locate a group of at least six of them fishing next to the cascades.

Some of them soon moved up on a rock (across the river from us) for resting and doing some morning yoga as we snapped a few photos:

The river otters are quite social, and it’s fun to watch them interact with each other. We watched them for a while and they were quite aware of our presence, but they went about with their own business of grooming, catching fish and crawdads, etc.:

Here are a couple of them swimming in a relatively calmer stretch of the river with reflection of fall foliage:

But, most of the time, the otters stayed close to the cascades. I think it is easier to catch the fishes there as they pop up more, but I might be wrong. You can also see a human (Homo sapiens) fishing in the distance:

Another image of the fast-flowing river with the light of the rising sun on the trees bordering it:

Most of these wider images are captured using my cellphone. I clearly remember that this was the day I figured out that I could capture slow shutter photos using my cellphone and got so excited that I kept taking photos of the stream with different compositions:

These next images are all from one of my favorite parts of Oklahoma. This region in the southeast part of the state features beautiful hilly areas and several small rivers and creeks flowing through them, creating some wonderful scenery— especially during the fall. The two things that make these fall experiences absolutely wonderful are bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) trees and fog along the rivers.

The fall colors on the bald cypress are very different from what most people think of when they think of fall foliage. The fine textures along with the burnt orange coloration make them quite unique. Add to that the fact that these trees can stand right in the water developing “knees” that grow upwards from their roots. There are different theories on what utility they might provide. I am not a biologist so, I will stay away from claiming I understand them:

Here is another creek in the same area that had calmer water allowing for nice reflections of the bald cypresses along it:

Lights and shadows along the creek…:

A White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) peaked through the forest:

A handsome Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) against the fall foliage:

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in a bald cypress:

Great Blue Herons are abundant here, and they can add to the magical scenes with morning fog along the river. Here’s one sitting on a bald cypress while a group of Double-crested Cormorants (Nannopterum auritum) swim by:

Another magical scene. The birds (cormorants) again add to the already beautiful scene. The fog makes the scene look like a painting:

This particular tree from the previous photo and this photo is a famous one in the park and a good photography subject during the fall. On this particular morning, I was lucky to capture this scene with a tiny amount of sunlight on the foggy scene when a Great Blue Heron flew in. This image won me an international photography contest award. It was just about being at the right place at the right time:

Sreemala was standing to my left shooting birds in flight using her telephoto lens while I was trying to get the tree with its reflection using a wide lens. She also noticed the heron flying in and captured her own version with her telephoto lens. This resulting image has its own flavor with the bird bigger in the frame, but she was unlucky to be holding the telephoto at that moment as she missed out on the reflection and the full view of the tree. It turns out that it’s really about being at the right place at the right time with the right lens!:

It’s totally possible for someone to like Sreemala’s image more, but my rule would still work as you can then say that she ended up having the “right” lens at that moment.

Oklahoma may not have the same reputation as Texas or Louisiana for the bald cypress fall colors, but we have our own nook around this corner of the state, and I absolutely cherish every trip down there.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 13, 2026 • 8:30 am

Well, folks, this is it, the last batch of wildlife photos I have. As for more, there is nada, zip, zilch, and bupkes in the queue.  It is very sad, isn’t it.

But today we have photos of otters from reader Christopher Moss. Christopher’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. The first batch was sent on December 29:

Just after the sun went down this evening I spotted a pair of otters on the other side of the pond. I assume they are Lontra canadensis, the North American river otter. They are about 80m away, and the photos were taken through a window. But when you’re desperate for readers’ wildlife photos, maybe they will do. The otters played in a small area of open water for a while and then I lost sight of them in the gloom. This is the third or fourth time I have seen otters in our pond (which is in northwest Nova Scotia, near the border with New Brunswick).

Eventually one otter came back up, and was then joined by a second:

One of the otters came back for a trout:

We’re arguing over whether there are three or four pups. I do have a still of five otters at once:

Here’s a video showing all five at once:

A few minutes later my son called out that they were all standing up looking at something, and – guess what? – this fellow was a few feet from them: