My daughter and son-in-law have been hiking in Nevada and Utah. Yesterday was Bryce Canyon. They’ve seen sheep, deer, bison, antelope, elk, and a roadrunner. They did The Narrows hike in Zion National Park, which includes hiking through waist deep water.
Don’t know which park this was in.
This morning I saw a mockingbird attacking a squirrel in the tree in my front yard.
Actually yesterday, a big fat bumblebee in my backyard. Later a bumblebee (likely the same one, they have become sadly rare it seems) in the front yard except the dog saw it and pounced on it (dogs are so weird with bees, want to bite them but afraid to). Got the dog away, no visible damage to bee but it clearly wasn’t up to snuff, gently got it onto a stick and put it under the front steps where the dog couldn’t get to it. I hope it’s ok.
Also do they retract their stingers? I couldn’t see a sign of a stinger. Bee was a solid inch long fwiw.
I think all bees lose their stingers when they use them, and then the bee dies. If your bumble didn’t sport a stinger, we can probably deduce why he wasn’t up to snuff. 
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Recent nature sightings:
The regular deer herd is back for the season. Varmints.
The regular flock of turkeys is much reduced this year. Down to one only. I think I know why.
Second cougar sighting about a week ago.
There’s a pair of Bufflehead ducks that return to my pond to mate each year. I spotted them 2 days ago. Hoping for ducklings soon!
The ravens have returned from wherever they’d got to for a few months. They’re usually here year round. I admit I missed them. Silly buggers. I kept them from tearing up my spa cover this year by keeping a sparkling helium balloon tied to the cover lift. Hopefully they’ll run off the blue jay who’s scoping out a territory near the house.
Several squirrels have claimed trees, chipmunks, too.
No sightings so far, but the bears have left evidence of being about. Scat and torn-up old tree stumps.
Sitting in the kitchen, we just watched a crow robbing a nest. It appeared with an egg in its mouth, delicately placed it on the lawn, carefully pecked a hole in the top of the egg so that nothing was spilled, and then consumed the contents. Then it flew up onto the fence, jumped into a rhododendron bush, reappeared with another egg and repeated the process.
I think they may have been pigeon eggs. I certainly hope so. 
j
Nope! Honeybees, yes, but bumblebees can sting repeatedly. The honeybee is “designed” with a barb that latches the stinger in, and pulls it from the abdomen of the bee (along with a little venom pump, to really drive the point home).
I’ll be jiggered. What a great instance of ignorance fought! I should have checked further, instead of relying on my general bee knowledge. That’s a very interesting thing to learn. Thanks for going to the trouble!
I’m still baffled by why @Fhari’s bumble was missing its stinger, though.
Generally, I believe the stinger shouldn’t be visible; the abdomen of a bumble is usually just bluntly rounded. The stinger is generally retracted inside the abdomen when it isn’t actually stinging.
I’ve only ever been stung by a bumblebee once; she managed to fly into me (presumably by accident), smacking me essentially right in the Adam’s apple, which was a surprisingly solid impact… Then she fell into my shirt, which was apparently somewhat disturbing to her, because I then got stung a couple of times in the chest. It wasn’t pleasant, but I got her out without injury!
TBT it wasn’t today, but a couple of weeks ago I went to the Long Tom River Trail near my home. This is a river near Eugene, Oregon, and I actually live in its watershed rather than that of the Willamette as one might expect. It’s the sort of local feature you don’t find out about until you live here.
Beautiful. Love the black and white shot.
So you bring personal experience to the table – rarely to be argued against. Sorry you had to experience this to learn about it.
Now I’m curious to learn if other bees hang on to their stingers after they sting. I know most if not all wasps do. If I learn something interesting, I’ll check back. 
Saw them again today - here’s two of them. I think these are red-tails.
Today I saw a female black headed grosbeak at our suet feeder and later saw a male chowing down. I think this is the first time I’ve seen them in the wild.
What an odd coincidence… yesterday we had a black-headed grosbeak at our back yard feeder for the first time. Or at least the first time we’ve seen…
Yesterday it rained all day long. Nature looked wet.
Baltimore orioles are back.
Wet and hungry, kayaker!
I’m getting very attached to my little shoe-wren. The shoe shelf is right about chest height when I go out the garage door, so I always glance over there now just to make sure mama’s all right. That defiant little face makes me laugh! We’re leaving the garage open all the time now so she can come and go. Looking forward to seeing the little ones in a couple of weeks.
Thank you. The petals scattered along the path really caught my eye; for whatever reason they don’t show up as well in the original color image.
That’s what I love about helping wildlife reproduction. We do all we can to assist, then we get to reap the rewards. (Ignores bird of prey)
Close - I think they are probably Red-Shouldered Hawks.