I saw my first alligator of the year today! A little feller, in a retention pond along my route to work.
Our house on the North Shore of Boston looks directly out on the Atlantic.
Yesterday, thanks to a heads-up from our neighbor, we spotted several whales less a mile out from us.
Sorry, no pix. We were lucky just to spot them visually.
Yes, you were, that’s awesome!
I spotted three raccoon kits in a tree last night. Tried to take a picture but it didn’t turn out. Anyway, the moral of the story is, I need to start locking up my chicken coop before dark.
We had some pretty bad storms roll through Thursday afternoon. While my family and I were hanging out in the basement, my friend (a former weatherman) was filming this:
Wow, Seeing very strong updraft there and maybe some rotation. Did a tornado develope?
Starting at two o’clock AM, we had four (?) tornado warnings. That was the one that came through at four in the afternoon. It was like we had a big target painted on us, but luckily they tended to touch down briefly in farmers’ fields.
Here’s another atmospheric one, from a couple of days ago, and it’s a bit of an oddity.
OK, so how would you know that there was an unusual stillness in the atmosphere? I guess generally you wouldn’t, but here’s a strange indicator of an absence of turbulence - contrails that just don’t go away. This was taken a few miles from Gatwick airport - you’ll need a decent screen size and may need to click-to-open the photo to get the best understanding of this.
I don’t recall seeing anything like this before - as you can see from the blueness of the sky, things have been pretty anticyclonic here, so maybe that has something to do with it.
j
Last week I saw something in my neighbor’s yard – at first I thought it may be a garbage bag or pile of dirt, but then I saw it move (and not just due to wind).
Turns out it was a pheasant. Later I talked to my neighbor – he said it was on on his deck less than 10 feet from where he was sitting.
Brian
Oh man, that reminds me I saw Turkeyzilla (Turkeysquatch?) on my way to work this morning! I would have stopped for a picture but somebody was coming up behind me. He could’ve fed a whole lot of pilgrims. 
At Seacliff State Beach last week, a crow snacking on a snake.
My kind of crow.
Awesome pictures! It can be little tough to tell if they’re not side by side, but judging mainly by that massive beak (and pretty big feet, proportionally longer tail) I’m thinking it is more likely a Common Raven than a crow. Comparison.
As it happens, some neighbors were able to grab a few nice shots of the whales. I don’t know if these are the exact whales I saw, but they were in the same pod. They are Atlantic right whales. (Click to see a couple more.)
On my hike today, adult and tadpole versions of the California Toad:
Took advantage of the mid 60s F and got a paddle in. There is a section of the Mississippi backwaters near me called Blue Lake. (Houston County, Minnesota) Later in the year it gets choked with plants.
I saw geese, coots (of unknown age), a juvenile eagle, and my first turtle of the season. I didn’t get any great pictures.
Brian
You don’t know how old you are?
Yesterday, actually, on a cross country bike ride. Round here that has to include road sections to get from trail to trail. So, on a tiny road, just coming up to the start of a forest section, I am separated from the forest by a barbed wire fence, and I cycle past a pair of (wild) fallow deer not two meters from me. I’m on one side of the fence, they’re on the other, and they’re completely indifferent to my presence - until I stop the bike, maybe ten meters away, and that spooks them and they run off into the woods.
The male had a mighty rack - fallow deer apparently cast antlers in April/May, so in another few weeks he would have looked completely different.
j
All right, all right…I’ve been dragging my feet about doing my evening chores again. But I got a picture this time!
Neat!!!
First the crows were all crazy, fighting each other, five or six of them. Diving into the perching ones, attacking in flight, dive-bombing close to the ground if one stood there. What they usually do to the magpies (the magpies of course retaliate), but this time doing it to each other. For hours. Quite a sight.
Then a red kite flew by and pandemonium broke loose. TIL: Crows do not like kites at all.