Mrs Bullwinkle, less than 100 yards/meters from my campsite:
Brian
Actually, I realize this is a native “writing spider”, which is more unusual now.
We’ve got one like that in our yard. I just call it a “banana spider”, though I haven’t actually tried to identify it. She’s very determined to build a web across the path, so we have to be careful when walking not to break it with our face!
Thirty odd years ago we spent a day at Cuckmere Haven ( London, south til you hit the sea, right a bit) and … we saw little egrets. I can’t tell you how big a deal this was at the time. On the Monday I casually mentioned to a workmate, Jerry, who was a bit of a birder, that we has seen them. “Been to Chichester Harbour?”, he said (London, south til you hit the sea, left a bit). No, actually - so there were two places in the UK where you could see them.
Today they’re a commonplace. But I mention that story because we’re on Chichester Harbour today. It’s a bay, not a harbour, and evidently (still) quite the place for little egrets. I think I may have posted pictures of this roost before, but it just gets bigger and bigger.
We think somewhere around a hundred birds. Certainly the biggest we’ve seen.
j
Goodness, that was a complicated post on a phone. This is simple: a family of swans.
j
ETA : brutal crop. Click thru for the full image
This guy crawled out of the bushes when I was watering today. I think it may want to re-think its choice of color.
That is a beautiful one! And the color will be perfect in a few days, if she survives that long. They usually die anyway after depositing the ootheca around this time of the year in my region. This one I saw in october two years ago:
Comparing both, yours has bigger eyes, so she could be a he.
She certainly should. But that hue against dark green with the water droplets makes for absolutely stunning photos 
.
The broad, heavy abdomen with wings not extending past usually indicates a female.
Lovely swans, @Treppenwitz!
It’s been hot lately, so I was sleeping with my sliding door open. Last night, there was an especially loud owl. I wanted to see it, but when I got up and stepped out onto my balcony I couldn’t see it. Once I went back in I didn’t hear it anymore. Guess I caused it to either shut up or move on.
We’re listening to owls right now. We’re on a holiday camp (ish) in the north of Brittany, and it’s pretty rural. Nice to hear in the evening. Incidentally, there are a lot of lakes here, and we watched a coypu swimming earlier this evening.
@Dung_Beetle, those swans are super protective of the kids. They flat-out attacked us when we were there in June. This visit they were a serious obstacle on the beach. We’re old and wise - we waited for another couple to attract their ire and then scooted around behind their backs.
j
I ran into some Sooty Grouse on the Taft Point Trail in Yosemite this morning:
Holy camouflage Batman! Nice shots!
We’re currently in the Vendee in western France. This evening, shortly after sunset, with cloudless skies and overlooking the Atlantic, we watched Venus setting. That’s a first.
j
I love how the youngsters are just showing little awkward tufts of “grown-up!” white feathers.
Ah, puberty.
Today, here in the Vendee, i saw clouds unlike any I have seen before.
The “vertical” I assume is a contrail. The “horizontals”, I have no idea.
j
Any cloudologists around?
The moon and Venus setting into the Atlantic.
j
Nice. Venus looks HUGE in that light.
Tonight’s wild turkey family reunion:
The one on top of the fence … jeebus, they are awkward flyers. I mean, she got up there, but I hope it was worth the struggle.