While returning from the Turkey Parade, I discovered that I have a new neighbor. This is right by my side door. I have not yet seen the occupant:
Domesticated ones, certainly, but wild turkeys can fly well enough. I mean, they’re still no peregrine falcons or swifts, but they’re good enough.
Plus, just for getting on top of that fence, it could probably just jump, without needing to use its wings at all except maybe for balance.
Today I saw some new (to me) nature!
I’m in New Mexico and we went to both a state park and the botanical gardens in Albuquerque.
I got me some photos of a Wilson’s Warbler
a Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay
and a Whiptail Lizard:
So pretty!
We have a skink in our garage that looks a lot like your last picture, and he’s gotten quite big. Over six inches long, I’d say. Makes me jump when he skitters across my path!
We have a lot of five-lined skinks here - they’re quite pretty, but that whiptail wins the longest tail competition by a mile.
Nice - I always like that jaunty black cap. Looking into it while they are all over the eastern U.S. as well during migration, they are apparently much more uncommon. Out here on the west coast they’re one of our most common migrant warblers and breed locally in the spring (a la the fledgling I posted earlier)..
I’ve sure never seen one on my side of the US - the only common warbler species in my area are the pine warbler in the summer and in the winter the yellow rumps show up. Another couple dozen are present, but you have to go looking for them.
Our local chapter of Audubon will usually host a trip to Warbler Road in Virginia in the spring to catch all the migrants who come through the Blue Ridge then.
Location, location, location - I’ve never seen a pine warbler in my life 
. I have lived and visited back east, but only when I was pretty young and/or much less interested in birds.
ETA: I almost just corrected myself above, remembering I might have seen one rare vagrant. But that was actually another uncommon vagrant out here, the Palm Warbler. Thankfully I caught myself before having to make two edits.
So got charged by this Black-tailed Jackrabbit. Sorta. I saw it coming from quite a ways away around a bend and even after it hit the straightaway it just kept running towards me. No apparent reason - seems it was just late for a very important date. Finally stopped when it was next to me about three feet away on the trail and briefly stood up on its haunches and gave me a worried side-eye like it was just noticing me for the first time (I was motionless in tan and olive green), then kept on booking down the trail. It looks a bit more orangey than it probably usually would because it was early light at about 7 am. A little surreal.
But it must be something in the air. Just a couple days later I had to verbally call ‘whoa’ on a mature buck Columbian Blacktail (smaller, coastal mule deer) that was doing a very quick trot along a hill trail headed right at me. He was tracking a couple of does crashing barely seen through the underbrush to one side and he was completely oblivious to me blocking his path (it’s the pre-rut season when the males have scraped the velvet off and start herding does). He was big enough I wanted no part in a sudden surprise 
. Thankfully that stopped him and he gave me a thoughtful stare, then did a big “U” around me through the underbrush, emerging back on the trail on the other side of me and continued on his way. Not the greatest shot, but here he is on the other side (only five points, but he was still a pretty barrel-chested boy - blacktails don’t usually get massive racks).
Also ran across one particular Chestnut-backed Chickadee busily eating some hanging fruit (Spiny Redberry, I think) which surprised me just a bit. I think of them as purely insectivorous, but looking it up as much as a third of their diet is non-insect based. Huh - who knew?
Also watched a couple of Bewick’s Wrens dust-bathing on the trail. Very wren-like thing to do. I’ve watched House Wrens at it as well. I thought about posting a mediocre 6-second shaky cam video, but I couldn’t get the bandwidth on a free account where I thought it looked good in playback. But look for better videos of it online - it’s cute .
Our Carolina wrens will do this in the hanging baskets on the porch - they also like to roost there after nesting season ends.
Wow, all of those pictures look great to me, @Tamerlane! I like the jackrabbit best, we don’t get those around here.
Thought I was gonna squick — two large wolf spiders were duking it out this morning in the Florida room right outside my office window. Looks like a stalemate at this point; they’ve gone to neutral corners. Ick.
The grackles are coming through! We always refer to them as the gangster birds. The other morning, I looked out the window and saw at least 100 grackles on my lawn and at least that many more in the trees. When I left for my walk, they all took flight and went to the neighbor’s lawn. Then the next day I saw two huge flocks flying overhead. They’re very noisy!
On Saturday I saw…some Viking Badger Cub 8 x 21 binocs for £30 in a shop at a local National Trust property - so I bought them. I’ve had a hankering for some compact binocs for a while - something that you can hook onto your belt and forget about when you go out. Not for a specialist trip, just for when you’re out on a walk and spot something interesting, These fit the bill perfectly, and you know what? I’m really rather impressed by their performance.
I’m a little banged up and restricted after minor surgery yesterday, so I may just drive out to a local hide (“blind” in US English?) over the next couple of days, to see what they can do.
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Oh, crap! you should keep your pets on a leash! 
If that thing gets loose, it’s curtains for all mankind!
The house now belongs to Shelob.
Halloween decorations came free this year.
The worst part is when you don’t see one of those and walk into it face-first.
More of a hear than a see… I was in the back yard and heard a loud noise. A large dead tree fell over. It has been a common perching spot for birds. It’s one of the largest trees around and the branches didn’t have leaves and stuff to get in the way.