Category: Readers’ wildlife

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 4, 2026 • 8:15 am

Bruce Lyon, who’s now retired and is an emeritus professor of Ecology and Evolution at UC Santa Cruz, sent a batch of bird photos.  His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I have already shared some recent photos of seabirds (here) and foxes (here) on St Paul Island, Alaska. In addition to these treats, the island is a mecca for bird watchers who keep regional bird lists. Various islands in Alaska are magnets for vagrants from Asia and birders who are serious about keeping lists visit the Island to beef up their official American Birding Association species lists for North America. Specifically, vagrants are birds that show up beyond their typical breeding, migration or wintering areas.

I am not normally a lister, but friends on St Paul bird are local guides who fid amazing vagrants, which they then very generously share with biologists such as me. I have also learned that the list of vagrants is not completely random—some species are pretty regularly visitors from Asia. Some species are more likely in spring, while others are in fall. If you are interested in the biology of vagrants I can recommend Steve Howell’s Rare Birds of North America. Howell has a nice section that goes through various patterns and the different reasons for why birds become vagrants.

This post will focus mostly on shorebirds, because they are pretty common vagrants, and I will also include some species that breed on the island. All of the vagrants I feature are birds that breed in northern Asia.

The Terek sandpaper (Xenus cinereus) was the show stopper for me this year. We initially got really crappy views but then it showed up on the mudflats in front of our lodging and actually flew towards me and landed 20 feet away. What a cool shorebird!:

Eurasian whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) (the result of a recent split into two species, the North American species is now Hudsonian whimbrel). The Eurasian has white rump and white stripe up the back. Sadly the photos do not show the white on rump because bird was always tilted the wrong way:

Far Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis). This is a rare bird everywhere and was a really good bird to get. It was using its long beak to access giant isopods hiding under the rocks that none of the resident shorebirds could get:

Red-necked stint (Calidris ruficollis). This species was particularly common this year and up to 5 at a time hung out on the mudflats in front of our lodging:

Siberian sand-plover (Anarhynchus mongolus):

Falcated duck (Mareca falcata)—pretty stunning bird:

It was very windy, and the duck flipped over and showed the cool plumage pattern on its back:

The remaining birds are birds that breed on St Paul or nearby mainland Alaska.

A gorgeous and very tame female red phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius) that hung out in front of our lodging. This species doesn’t breed on the island. This is a ‘role reversed’ species, where females are more colorful than males, compete for males, and the males then do all of the work of incubating the eggs and raising the chicks:

A red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus), also in front of our lodging. These breed locally:

Rock sandpiper (Calidris ptilocnemis) chick and parent. Unlike most shorebirds, which are neurotic when they have chicks, these particular parents were very relaxed and the chicks were running around and feeding right in front of us on the road without the typical alarm calls that cause the chicks to hide. I lay on the road to get a nice out of focus bokeh background:

Sandpiper chicks have a beautiful plumage that makes them very camouflaged when they are hiding on the ground (tundra, grasses). They are also all leg!:

Rock sandpiper with a ‘wingup’ display used in courtship. Who knew that armpits are sexy!:

Semipalmated plovers (Charadrius semipalmatus) trying to lure me away from their nest with a broken-wing display. Many shorebirds use a display that fakes having an injured wing to lure predators away from the nest. To a predator, a bird with an injured wing should be an easy dinner and worth following. The faker leads the predator far from the nest, keeping its distance all the while, and then eventually returns to its nest. This first bird is the male—his eyering is orange:

Here is the female with a more yellow eyering and slightly more subdued plumage:

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 29, 2026 • 8:15 am

Hallelujah, we have a contributor!  (Please send in your wildlife photos if you want this feature to continue.) The contributor is Jan Malik, who has birds and mammals from Poland. Jan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

In this batch, I have included pictures of birds and mammals from the Tatra Mountains that I had a chance to photograph during my hikes over the last couple of years. They consist of both lowland generalists that have penetrated into the boreal forest zone and alpine specialists.

The Eurasian wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) is the only representative of the wren family in Europe. It was given the name “Troglodytes” (“cave-dwelling”) because it often searches for arthropods in rocky nooks and crannies; this behavior allows it to feed even in snowy conditions. Like the American marsh wren, males construct several nests, possibly both as a display of fitness for the female and as a decoy against predation:

The White wagtail (Motacilla alba) avoids dense forests but can penetrate from the lowlands into mountain valleys with meadows left from the earlier pastoral economy of the region or near ski slopes. This bird (just like the wren above, females and males are identical) was well aware of my presence and refrained from rushing to its nest so as not to betray its location:

Possibly a Water pipit (Anthus spinoletta), which is an altitudinal migrant—in summer it nests in the alpine zone, but in winter it relocates to wetlands or riverbanks. Its nest is well hidden in a rock crevice or in a tussock of grass:

The Alpine accentor (Prunella collaris) is a mountain specialist, staying in the alpine zone all year round except during very bad weather, when it can descend into lower valleys. A thick layer of down protects it against the cold.

It easily becomes habituated to people and is often seen on the highest summits, where it fearlessly scavenges for scraps of food among hikers:

This is a European robin (Erithacus rubecula), which, like the other birds mentioned above, is a species where females and males look alike. It is a generalist with a range that just penetrates the boreal montane forest. I saw them follow cattle or humans to catch insects fleeing from the disturbed ground. They look cute but are extremely territorial, and fights between two competitors can be deadly:

Not too many pixels on this Dunnock (Prunella modularis), which, unlike its cousin the Alpine accentor, is not limited to the mountains and does not go above the krummholz zone. It has a complex mating system consisting of a mix of polyandry and a “mating cooperative,” where a couple of males maintain a territory containing a couple of females:

The European goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis). I found this male (with a slightly larger red mask than the otherwise similar female) by first noticing a stream of thistle seeds drifting in the wind. This species stays in warmer lowlands with an abundant presence of thistles, which are used for both food and nesting material. In a fashion similar to the famous Galapagos finches, this species evolved a high-precision bill to extract nutritious seeds defended by thorns:

This Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius) is an edge-habitat dweller, hiding and nesting in lowland forests and entering only the lower boreal forest in the mountains. As a corvid, it is quite smart for a bird; however, with the many acorn and beech nut caches it makes for the winter, it always forgets a portion of them and thus contributes to forest growth. This one was patrolling a popular trail, looking for crumbs:

For the next two four-legged species, this is what their habitat looks like—an alpine tundra just below the barren high alpine zone:

Passing through it, finding a herd of Tatra chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra tatrica) is quite likely. The shaggy appearance of this individual is due to post-winter molting. Despite being commonly seen in the Tatras, it is an endangered subspecies; their numbers plummeted at the turn of the millennium to fewer than 200 individuals and have since increased to over 1,000 thanks to strict limits on tourist traffic in sensitive areas:

This mountain goat-antelope has close cousins in the Alps and parts of the Carpathian Mountains, but the Tatra population is completely cut off from them, since they are obligate mountain dwellers and do not tolerate dense forests or plains. The Tatra population has been isolated since the end of the Pleistocene, for at least 15,000 years. Over that period, the Tatra chamois evolved a special trait: unlike the Alpine chamois, it stays above the forest zone throughout the year. In the Ice Age, they populated the vast, ice-free montane tundra in that part of Europe (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Maps-showing-the-geographic-distribution-of-the-extant-subspecies-of-the-genus-Rupicapra_fig1_336957033):

The Tatra marmot (Marmota marmota latirostris) is another Ice Age holdover that became marooned on a high-altitude “island” as the climate warmed after the Pleistocene. It has had no contact with other groups of alpine marmots for at least 10,000 years. This site (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/46082-Marmota-marmota#map-tab) shows how fragmented the marmot habitat is:

The marmot also stays above the forest zone all year round. Since summers in the Tatras last only about 5 months, all of the marmot’s active life must occur within that short period. In the winter, it hibernates in a deep burrow and emerges emaciated in the spring, when it must nearly double its body weight to prepare for the next winter and breeding season:

And as a reminder of how crowded the Tatras can get, here is a Red deer hind (Cervus elaphus) that was trotting along a trail and forced me to step aside to let her pass. As in many other national parks, animals in the Tatra Mountains become habituated to people. Red deer are vertical migrants—feeding on montane meadows and in boreal forests in the summer, but retreating to lowland pastures and forest edges in the winter:

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 11, 2026 • 8:15 am

Ephraim Heller sent us a passel of lovely brown bear photos (and, oddly, one of an elephant), all  save the pachyderm taken in Alaska. (They are of course also known as “grizzly bears”.)  Ephraim’s notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I traveled to Lake Clark National Park in Alaska to photograph its famous coastal brown bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) as they clammed and fished along the coast of Cook Inlet. I stayed at a remote lodge on the coast. It was a mixed experience. During the week I was there I saw only a few individual sows and cubs, far fewer than expected (the boars tend to stay inland at this time of year). However, the sows loitered in the area, so there was plenty of time with them. When it was just the bears, the guide, and a few other guests, the photography was spectacular. Unfortunately, that was seldom the case. The few bears were more often mobbed by folks on bear-watching tours arriving from other lodges, small planes, and boats. At times, I counted up to 35 people watching a single bear. In crowds that large, you put your camera down and just enjoy watching the animal.

Now that I’m done with the kvetching, let’s get to the photos. For those who care about such things, all the photos were taken with a Nikon Z8 or Z9 camera and either a Nikon Z 70-200 lens + 1.4X teleconverter or a Nikon Z 24-120 lens.

When there were no crowds and I saw a bear approaching from afar, I made my first attempts at using a remote trigger. This involved: putting my camera and wide-angle lens on a low tripod at a location where I thought the bear was likely to pass; stepping away to a distance of about 30 feet; and triggering the camera with a remote shutter release. Most of these attempts ended in failure, as the bruin chose a different path. But occasionally, it worked:

Brown Bear at Lake Clark:

At other times, I just lay down in the mud and hoped that an approaching bear would walk nearby. It was quite safe, as there are so many clams and salmon to eat that they aren’t interested in eating me. I would certainly not do so with bears from the interior, who are typically hungrier and more aggressive:

A sow out for a stroll on the beach:

Ninety percent of the shoreline is made up of salt marsh, sand, and mud. Multiple rivers flow into Cook Inlet, creating a habitat containing three distinct food sources: protein-rich salt-marsh sedges, intertidal clams, and late-summer salmon. Park biologists have counted as many as 219 brown bears in a 54-square-mile coastal block. Those densities are possible because the food is concentrated and the bears have learned to tolerate one another.

Here’s a sow patrolling along a salmon stream. These two shots were taken with a remote trigger:

Taking a load off her feet:

Coastal and inland bears in the park are the same subspecies, but they live different lives. Inland animals travel farther for scarcer resources and remain more solitary. Coastal bears grow larger because marine-derived protein is available for months.

Another shot taken with a remote trigger:

This bear is looking for salmon at a river mouth at low tide. The following photos were taken as I in the mud flats. My waders kept me mostly dry, albeit mud-covered:

After den emergence in April–May, lean bears head first to salt marshes. These wetlands occupy less than 1 percent of the park yet supply Ramensk’s sedge (Carex ramenskii), an early-season protein source. Bears graze for hours like cattle.

When the sow spots a fish at the river mouth, she rushes over to seize her prey:

A few yards seaward, the intertidal flats hold clams, particularly Pacific razor clams (Siliqua patula). These are a year-round protein source that bridges the gap between spring vegetation and summer salmon. The tides were over 20 feet when I visited, and at low tide the exposed mud flat stretched out for hundreds of yards:

Clamming is a learned skill. Cubs watch their mothers. Novices dig randomly, excavating large, unproductive craters and then crunching whole shells. Experienced bears read siphon holes and slight depressions, work specific slope and sand textures at the lowest tides, and extract dozens of clams in a single low-tide window. The most efficient animals pry shells open with claws rather than crushing them and slurp the meat. Different individuals invent slightly different techniques.

Here’s a sow digging for clams in the mud flats. I don’t include many photos of bears clamming because photos of bears with their noses stuck in the mud just aren’t that interesting or pretty:

The Jesus bear subspecies walks on water. Or, perhaps, the mud flats extend for hundreds of yards at low tide:

By July and August the rivers fill with sockeye and other salmon. Park-wide sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) runs have ranged from 150,000 to more than 3 million fish. Bears shift from meadows and flats to stream mouths and shallow riffles. Techniques range from patient standing to explosive pounces. Experienced animals may catch dozens of fish a day and often eat only the most energy-dense parts (brain, roe, skin) before discarding the rest. This sow has caught silver or coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch):

I’ve written Ephraim for a replacement photo, but in the meantime enjoy this elephant picture:

If you visit, remember to carry bear spray. Bears like the pepper flavor:

Note: That was not my bear spray!

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 4, 2026 • 8:30 am

Very few people are sending in wildlife photos, so if you have some good ones, shoot them my way, please.  Fortunately, ecologist Susan Harrison has come through with another batch from Oregon. Susan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Mt. McLoughlin, Oregon  

In southern Oregon at the tail end of summer, climbing a volcano to look for Gray-crowned Rosy-finches (Leucosticte tephrocotis) seemed like a fun thing to do.

Gray-crowned Rosy-finch (photo from AllAboutBirds):

Per AllAboutBirds, “This delicate pink-and-brown songbird is among the hardiest of all birds. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches nest in the highest parts of the highest mountains in North America… they forage, seemingly at complete ease, on snowfields, forbidding talus slopes, and in high winds or snowstorms… (It) probably holds the record for highest-altitude breeding bird in North America.”

Who could resist looking for such superlative birds??  It required only a day hike to a 9,500-foot peak not far from my home base in Ashland, Oregon. The peak, Mt. McLoughlin, is just north of Mt. Shasta in the Cascade volcanic chain. The trail goes up its east (= right, in the photo below) side.

Mt. McLoughlin from the south:

Hikers often get lost as they descend the peak.  Near the summit there is no clear trail in the loose ash and talus, and if you start a few degrees off-course you’ll end up far from your destination.  Accordingly, there are many warning signs and route markers.

Trail warning sign:

The last half-mile to the summit is steep and slow going.  This is the likeliest place to see Rosy-finches – which, alas, I did not see.

Approach to the summit, with trail on the left:

However, I did make it to the summit and back safely!

Summit:

The main birds I saw at the top were several Rock Wrens (Salpinctes obsoletus) and a pair of Sharp-shinned Hawks (Accipiter striatus) chasing around a Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius).

Rock Wren:

Hawk chasing Harrier:

On the descent it became easier to pay attention to other small wildlife.

Scruffy juvenile Canada Jay (Perisoreus canadensis);  or is it an “American Jay” now??:

Townsend’s Solitaire (Myadestes townsendi):

Yellow-pine Chipmunk (Neotamias amoenus):

Rounding out this photo set, a few other recent scenes from the southern Oregon Cascades…

Upper Rogue River just below Crater Lake, where it flows through the collapsed lava tubes of ancient Mount Mazama:

Lower Rogue River at Blossom Bar rapid, where it flows through a scary and occasionally lethal (to rafters and kayakers) feature called the Picket Fence:

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 3, 2026 • 8:30 am

Today’s arthropod photos come from a visit to Poland from reader Jan Malik.  Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them (once or twice):

During my visit to Poland in June this year, I spent a few hours with a macro lens, looking for arthropods in three different habitats: a xerothermic dry meadow, a subalpine bog, and an alpine zone in the Tatra Mountains. I did my best to identify the species, but I can offer no guarantees as they were new to me.

First, the dipterans from the hoverfly family, all Batesian mimics of the more ferocious Hymenoptera. The Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) resembles a honeybee or a small bumblebee quite convincingly; it even buzzes like a bee. I believe this is a female, judging by the widely spaced eyes:

Another hoverfly, this time a wasp mimic, is possibly a Sphecomyia vespiformis. Like all Diptera, its antennae are short, but here, to increase similarity to a wasp with long antennae, they grow from an elongated column on the insect’s face:

Rounding up the order Diptera is a possible Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus). This female is a peaceful pollinator as an adult, but its larva is a predator of aphids:

Moving over to the order Lepidoptera, the first is a moth (genus Gillmeria); at first sight, I thought it was a crane fly, but long antennae place it firmly as a plume moth, even though I’m not sure which species it is. When at rest, these insects are masters of camouflage, resembling dried-out twigs:

Possibly a Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus), which is common in this part of Europe:

A final lepidopteran is a skipper (family Hesperiidae), but it is difficult to pin it down to a species. Possibly a Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris), going by the orange tip of its antenna?:

Now for Coleoptera (beetles): a Black longicorn beetle (Spondylis buprestoides). Both adults and larvae have powerful jaws which they use to chew through the wood of dead trees, accelerating the carbon cycle:

The next insect, from the same longhorn beetle family as the previous one, is a Black-striped Longhorn Beetle (Stenurella melanura), probably a female. The larvae feed on rotting wood, but adults prefer pollen:

Another coleopteran is a Common Red Soldier Beetle (Rhagonycha fulva). Its red color is an honest warning—when disturbed, they exude a fluid containing defensive acids that can cause chemical irritation. Here it feeds on pollen, but like other soldier beetles, if an aphid or a caterpillar is found, it is also eaten.

The last coleopteran, hiding in a flower during the rain, is a leaf beetle from the genus Cryptocephalus (I will go out on a limb and say the Dead-nettle Leaf Beetle, Cryptocephalus aureolus). The genus name originates from its head, which is tucked below the protective chitin armor:

Now for the arachnophiles amongst the readers, an orb-weaver spider (family Araneidae) having a meal out of a fly. Orb-weavers are highly variable in color, changing them to match their surroundings. They recycle their webs often by eating them and spinning new ones:

Another araneae, possibly a Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi), is a close European cousin of the common American yellow garden spider. Like its New World relative, it spins a ladder-like structure called a stabilimentum. The discussion is ongoing as to what the adaptive purpose of this structure is: possibly a UV reflector to lure bees or flies, or a warning for birds not to fly into it and destroy it, much like our window decals to prevent bird strikes:

The spider waiting inside the flower is a flower crab spider, likely a pale variant of the common Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia); I believe the same spiders are also abundant in North America. The flower could be a bellflower (genus Campanula). These spiders also change color, from greenish to yellow to off-white, matching the flowers where they sit in ambush:

Now for a few Hymenoptera—possibly a Black Garden Ant (Lasius niger) tending to a dense colony of Black Bean Aphids (Aphis fabae). Like many other ant species, they tap aphids with their antennae, and if the sucking hemipteran is ready, it releases a drop of sugary honeydew. In return, ants act as bodyguards, protecting the aphids from predatory hoverflies and ladybugs:

A parasitoid ichneumon wasp, possibly a Hoverfly larva parasitoid wasp (Diplazon laetatorius). It lays eggs in hoverfly larvae or eggs, and the wasp larva waits until its host grows big enough to become a substantial meal, then devours it from the inside. This species is said to be mostly parthenogenetic, with males being a rarity:

Another hymenopteran, a sawfly, is probably the Common Green Sawfly (Tenthredo mesomela). These sawflies are active predators of other small insects:

Lastly, I didn’t expect a Red-banded Froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata). Its two chief weapons are a nice red and black aposematic coloration, a habit of making itself scarce via powerful jumps, and joints in its legs that ooze a foul-tasting hemolymph if a predator decides to bite. Did a scientist actually taste that fluid to report on its bitter taste, or are we still waiting for a volunteer?:

Readers’ wildlife photos below

September 2, 2026 • 8:21 am

I stupidly set the wildlife post to appear at 6:15 a.m. instead of the usual 8:15, and so you may have received an email that goes nowhere, as I reset the posting for the usual time.

At any rate, you’ll want to see Bruce Lyon’s photos and four videos of Arctic foxes that he took in Alaska, and that post is right below this one—at this link.  Have a look.

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 2, 2026 • 8:15 am

Bruce Lyon has returned with Part 2 of his adventures with Arctic foxes, including photos and several videos.  Bruce’s captions and narrative are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here is a second batch of photos and videos of arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) on St Paul island. First batch here.

A parent resting by its den:

Below, a video from a couple of years ago of a very tame fox at the dump. Every time I went to the dump to check on some rosy-finch nests, this individual would run up very close to me and run circles around me, whining and barking and jumping up at me. I was amused and thought the fox was being friendly and curious but another biologist told me that this could be aggressive behavior—perhaps the fox was defending its den a bit too aggressively. That biologist had been bitten by foxes before:

This year we had a similar close encounter of the fox kind but this fox was at the harbor for the food and did not seem to have a den nearby. It seemed genuinely playful and curious and was particularly keen on nibbling my assistant’s rubber boots. Who doesn’t enjoy a chaw of boot rubber once in awhile?:

Earlier the fox in the above video had been munching on a clam that it probably got from the nearby pile of dredge material being scraped up from the floor of the harbor in a harbor improvement project. The dredge sediment seemed to be chock full of inverts like clams and seemed popular with at least a few foxes.

Back to the foxes with dens close to our lodging—one of these adults takes a large salmon tail to its pups:

If the pups are hidden in the den when a parent arrives with food the parent will sometimes just dump the food on the nearby beach for the pups to find later. The thick-billed murre carcass in the photo below was lying on the beach for some time before a pup finally discovered it:

Food fight or play? A couple of pups squabbled over a dead crab. I didn’t see much in the way of them eating the crab—either the crab was too far gone to be worth eating or the shell was a barrier:

A few photos of pups playing around the two dens near my lodging:

The pups do a lot of pouncing—here a pup pounces on a piece of cardboard:

Below, but it’s much more fun to pounce on a sibling:

Sometimes the squabbles among the pups seem like real fights. Below is a video of a family that had a den under a large metal CONEX container in town. Two of the pups seem to be having a serious fight, evidenced by the screaming. Normal play is not accompanies with this screaming. Perhaps these squabbles are used to establish dominance. Some studies have observed dominance hierarchies among the pups—the dominant individuals defend prey items and also take it from subordinates:

Here’s a video of the same family with a more playful scene:

Adult foxes that I at first thought were playing were more likely having a serious fight. This was near the harbor on a day when there were a lot of foxes hanging around, most of them peaceably. I saw these two foxes in the middle of the road, seemingly frolicking. One of the foxes was on its back in the typical dog submissive posture while the other was standing over it. All of a sudden the  one standing went at the submissive one, which ran like hell, right towards me. Look at the glorious fluffy tail on the fleeing animal!  My colleague Paula White, who has studied this population of foxes, tells me that fleeing subordinates often wave their tails in the face of the pursuers. Perhaps it is better to get bit on the tail than the butt? Waving a fluffy tail might also distract and confuse the chaser:

I will end with a family portrait: