A female Giant Ichneumon wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus) oviposits into the side of a tree.

I was honored to have this observation selected as observation of the day for June 11, 2020, and again as observation of the week (week of June 21, 2020). It is covered in this blog post: A Trip to Texas Provides a Long Sought Photographic Opportunity - Observation of the Week, 6/21/20.

Clung to the beak of a Whimbrel that was foraging in the seaweed, the bird could not dislodge it, after a couple of minutes the isopod dropped off. The Whimbrel continued to feed with the isopod on board.

Okanagana arctostaphylae was first described in 1915 and has not been collected since. These are the first photos ever taken of it in its natural habitat, and the second photos ever of a live individual.

Had spotted a white bundle of fur in a tree and after a time spent studying determined it was a Raccoon with either Albinism or Leucism. It shifted a few times over a couple of hours and finally when I had nearly given up, it briefly opened it's eyes. Which confirmed this as an Albino, as Leucism does not impact eye pigment.

@sambiology @mchlfx @wildcarrot I went looking for @jblinde Siren's but got distracted obviously. Has anyone mentioned seeing this animal at LLELA?

First two pics show two species for comparative purposes.

Specimen on right: Note V-shaped base of flower, less dense branching, longer/narrower petals compared to Amphiachris (left; https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/34926032).

I'm going back to some of my earliest wildlife images. These are scans from old prints and slides.

This swallowtail was photographed at a park outside of Taipei, Taiwan in about July of 1969 (annotated as "Summer 1969" on back of original). Identified from this reference:

Shirozu, Takashi. 1960. Butterflies of Formosa in Colour. Hoikusha, Osaka, Japan.

The several pink lunules on the hindwing suggest that this is a female (op. cit., pl. 16, p. 51). In that work, the Taiwan population of this east Asian swallowtail is termed Papilio bianor kotoensis. The following website suggests that ssp is "often treated as a full species".
http://www.swallowtails.net/P_bianor.htm

This male was one of several dozen individuals on one of the main stems of a dying lacebark. I counted nine male/female pairs, some with a third individual (sometimes a noticeably smaller female, sometimes a male) which was usually chased off by the male of the pair. I got enough video to be able to confirm that the females appeared to be ovipositing. In addition, there were an indeterminate number of lone individuals roaming the trunk.

Two males apparently contesting access to a female. Although not apparent from the photo, the male on the right was noticeably smaller than the other male. They briefly pressed their heads together ('face-to-face') as if pushing each other before the smaller male backed away and, shortly after, scuttled away. The larger male then appeared to copulate briefly with the female and remained with her.

Voracious spider captured hummingbird in web at sugar feeder. I did not think about location of web, other than it was uncomfortable to avoid when going through garden gate, when I rehung the feeder. A few hours later, she had trapped and beheaded and wrapped the hummingbird.

Came across a 43 year old slide that I had not posted before, so I scanned it for iNat. On June 20, 1975 (date written on original slide) I saw this male Painted Bunting in my back yard in south Austin. I recognized it from a cover illustration on the Robbins field guide I had at that time. It was my first Painted Bunting. It was this experience that drove me to go to a local Audubon meeting where I met other birdwatchers and began my life long interest in nature and photography.

Image 1 highly cropped, image 2 is the whole original image.

I was looking for cluster of Veliids on the banks of the Rio Grande and found these Gerrids instead. Huge thanks to Alysa for being brave enough to go out and catch these. And to Chris for doing the detective work back at home!

Large clusters of these striders were found in shady areas beside the Devil's River, ranging from 10-30 feet from shore.

Had such a blast with other iNatters at the Del Rio gathering. I saw lots and lots of new plants and animals -- so these ID's are tentative. I'll have to do a little more digging later.
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/sambiology/15447-spending-time-with-inat-community-in-del-rio

The lizard was so intent on keeping its prey it didn't skedaddle, giving us a chance to take pictures.
I assume it wasn't scavenging and actually caught it, but you've got to be fast to catch these insects!
Prey here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/10597608

Between 21-24 September I observed and photographed 24 different color banded Piping Plovers on the upper Texas coast and adjacent Louisiana. 22 in Texas, 2 in Louisiana. I have provided data and photos on all these birds to various governmental agencies in the U.S. and Canada, as well as several universities who are involved in various projects with Piping Plovers. I'll hold off posting these to iNat until I get data on the bird and its origin. I received info on this bird today, so I'll post that record here for the information to be available on iNat for anyone interested.

Piping Plover U13
23 September 2015
Rollover Pass, Gilchrist, Galveston Co., Texas
29.5108
-94.4908
Right leg above joint: metal numbered band
Right leg below joint: white over blue
Left leg above joint: yellow flag with black lettering “U1?”
Left leg below joint: blue over white

USGS Missouri River Tern & Plover Team
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Jamestown, North Dakota
Piping Plover U13 - banded as an adult on 28 May 2015 on an alkali lake near Mercer, ND.

This species was tentatively recorded as non-fossil by @benhutchins in June of 2015.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2705512

A fresh-looking shell was also documented and suspected to occur as non-fossil by Richard Fullington in his 1979 report of Land and Freshwater Mollusca of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, but that report seems as if it had been forgotten until recently.

After much debate among us and several other experts about the fossil vs. non-fossil status of that shell (Oreohelix spp have been recorded from the Guads in fossil in previous work), we finally had an opportunity to return to this area and search for this species and perhaps answer the question once and for all. My bet was on non-fossil.

Benjamin Hutchins, Zachary Schwartz (my son), and I took a 2-day backpacking and sampling trip into the high Guads. Soon after arriving at the approximate site where Ben had previously found the shell, we started finding bleached dead shells, then a very fresh dead shell, and then finally 6 live specimens! We were also sampling litter to document the snail community in this habitat, and a number of other species also occur there.

Aside from the excitement of the 'snail hunt', this is a significant find for snail diversity in TX, because it definitively adds a new family to the list of snail fauna in the state. Thanks to Ben for instigating this search and for inviting us to be a part of it.

At this point, we are calling this Oreohelix neomexicana. It fits the description for that species reasonably well, though there is apparently significant variation in size and shape in the species. I am not aware of any molecular work that has been done to confirm that these mountain-top species from various ranges in NM are all the same species. The nearest site where it has been documented in NM is in the Sacramento Mountains.

Found on a west-facing slope. Collected with permission and permit.

My uploads will be nothing if not diverse! We were birding La Barqueta Preserve near the resort of the same name and took a moment to walk over to the dark gray volcanic sand beach to do a little beach combing. Mary Kay noticed this small clam at the high tide line. For size perspective, my index finger is about 20 mm across.

You know you’ve found a large moth when…

1. After a 40 year career as a wildlife biologist, you can’t believe what you’re seeing is real.
2. Your ruler isn’t long enough to get a good measurement (2nd image), so you go back to get a longer ruler (3rd image) and that isn’t long enough, so you scramble around to find a carpenter’s measuring tape to fully span the wings (4th image).
3. Your astonishment is like the joy of a child on Christmas morning; you start laughing and giggling uncontrollably.
4. The largest moth on your sheet has a wingspan 40X the size of the smallest one.
5. You stay up until 3:30 a.m. journaling about one moth.
6. You start taking selfies...with a moth (last image).

To the best of my ability to measure this critter, the wingspan (with a bit of the tip of the right FW missing) is about 27.8 cm, so it would probably be about 28.5 cm (11.2 in) if it were intact. The species is said to have the largest wingspan of any Lepidopteran in the world.

The moth was initially discovered on the sheet by Mary Kay Sexton. I had overlooked it.

To read more of the story, see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/gcwarbler/13211-mothing-in-panama