Yay snek!
This is my only sighting recently. It’s a close-up of some rotted siding on our patio. I thought at first it was a lizard with a very long tail, but nope! A harmless Florida water snake, I believe.
“Eater of fish and frogs”.
We’ve had some ants trying to establish a nest in our backyard. They’ve punched up an anthill right through some hard, compacted clay/gravel. I’ve put out poison bait (two kinds) and have been waiting for it to take effect.
This morning I was in our garage and saw a largish bug running across the floor. I thought it was an earwig, but looking closer, it was a big queen ant. It was almost an inch long, the biggest ant I had ever seen. It was running in a kind of confused, questing manner.
I opine that her worker offspring fed her some of that bait, which gave her a bellyache and she was looking for safer quarters. She didn’t find it, though. I was heartless and flushed her down the toilet.
Thank you for taking the time.
Just sometimes, you gotta do the necessary evil. I had seen signs of carpenter ants at my house, so when I saw a queen on my garage floor, she met with my shoe sole and the pest control company was called to issue an evacuation notice.
Yesterday I saw a heron at the goose pond while I was on my way to the grocery store.
Today I went out to pick some tomatoes. The tomato cage door is held shut with two little bungee cords and one of them felt weirdly soft. This was clinging to it:
Apparently it’s some sort of flannel moth caterpillar. I guess I was lucky my hand didn’t come into contact with any of its stinging hairs.
My first thought on seeing the photo was “That’s one of those scary venomous caterpillars!”
The world is full of fantastical creatures!
My first thought was that it was a chicken sleeping with its head under its wing!
I googled flannel moth caterpillar images. I got the shivers!
Yeah, they’re a walking owwie. But you gotta admit they’re an adorably cute bundle of pain.
Megalopyge opercularis - it’s been nicknamed the Trump caterpillar because of it’s hairstyle. 
Formatting issue.
Let’s try this again:
I saw about a dozen of these guys today. This one was willing to sit in the open for a while so I could get several captures.
ETA Dammit. It still won’t show the entire picture. Is it because I’m doing this on my iPhone?
Wow! You took that?
I can see the whole thing if I click on it.
Yes I took it, thanks. I used my fancy camera, not my phone. Glad you like it.
But what am I doing wrong when posting that you have to click it to see the entire picture?
Beautiful photo.
This just came up here. Might check to see if that is the same problem you have.
Great shot!
Thanks Tamerlane! Looks like that worked. Sorry for the double post.
So what kind of bird is that?
A Northern Flicker, a type of woodpecker. There are two variants in North America, red-shafted in the West and yellow-shafted in the East. As you can tell from the tail this is the yellow-shafted one. Most of their time is spent on the ground hunting for bugs rather than in trees. I love them. They look like something out of a hallucinogenic fever dream.