Herps and Birds (and More)

Hey there, I'm Paxon, a wildlife biologist, living in the SE United States. I've been on Tumblr since 2009. We're here to share the beauty of herps and birds, as well as fishes and invertebrates. Cis-male. He/him. Queer. Texas.

[herpsandbirds]

Asks/IDs/Requests are shut down while I get caught up.

If you send an ID request or photo submission by DM, I will powerbomb you through a table.

[herpsandbirds]

European Rollers (Coracias garrulus), family Coraciidae, order Coraciiformes, found across southern and eastern Europe, much of western Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa

photograph by Fayaz Faleel

[herpsandbirds]

Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucocorodia), breeding plumage, family Threskiornithidae, order Pelicaniformes, India

photograph by Navin Verma Karola

[herpsandbirds]

Jodi's Pipe Snake (Cylindrophis jodiae), family Cylindrophiidae, Angkor Forest, Siem Reap, Cambodia

photographs by Yuehua Pu

[every-day-creechur]

Tucumán Amazon Amazona tucumana

Found in Argentina and Bolivia in the Yungas bioregion. The Tucumán amazon makes a "variety of screeches and calls, including shrill shrieks and lower-pitched barks." Its flight call is "a repeated, somewhat yelping, shrill "quiowk"."

Vulnerable

image by Pablo Demaio

[herpsandbirds]

THIS IS THE RUSH THAT THE COCKROACHES GET AT THE END OF THE WORLD!!!

[herpsandbirds]

Red-legged Salamander (Plethodon shermani), family Plethodontidae, NC, USA

photograph by Benjamin Genter

[herpsandbirds]

Yeah I'd blow him.

[vandaliatraveler]

A few odds and ends from a mini-roadtrip this past weekend. Blake and I reconnoitered several lakes to the west of Fairmont for a possible canoe adventure and stopped at Valley Falls State Park to check out the Tygart Valley River, which is running high from the monsoon-like rainfall from the past week. The rock outcrops that normally serve as my photographic vantage points were submerged in two to three feet of foamy whitewater. Yet, in a quiet cove set back from the river's chaotic rapids, I found a gorgeous cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) basking at the water's edge. In the marshy edges of the local lakes, swamp rose-mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) is now at peak bloom, often massing in large colonies with multi-colored flowers - red, burgundy, pink, and white. And of course Blake, who owns a built-in radar for all manner of reptiles and amphibians, found a shy eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), which refused all entreaties by the photographer to come out of its shell for a portrait.

[addicted2wasps]

Last night, I got curious and felt adventurous, so I decided to make some die-cut stickers of my wasps! I wanted to try something different! The images shown are just the preview templates from the website while I was designing the stickers, but I will update this post with more pics when I receive them on Wednesday! I'm really excited!

[photogdenography]

Coming For You

Lesser Black-Backed Gull - Bergen, Norway

[herpsandbirds]

Jesse, please stop...

[herpsandbirds]

Side-striped Palm Viper (Bothriechis lateralis), family Viperidae, Costa Rica

Venomous.

photograph by Diego Ugalde

[herpsandbirds]

Brown-winged Kingfisher (Pelargopsis amauroptera), family Alcedinidae, order Coraciiformes, Thailand

photograph by Anirban Kumar Ghosh

[herpsandbirds]

Atala Butterfly (Eumaeus atala), family Lycaenidae, Ft. Myers, Florida, USA

The host plant for this butterfly is the Coontie, the only cycad native to the continental U.S.

photographs by Joaquin Garcia

[herpsandbirds]

Yellow-legged Mud-dauber Wasp (Sceliphron caementarium), gathering mud, Sphecidae, WA, USA

photograph by Steve Russell

[herpsandbirds]

Habitat Loss Killing Europe's Adders in Real Time

The european adder is vanishing, not with a bang. Quietly. I go out and check what's left of the habitats I've known for years. No white washing, no panic graphs. Just the ground, the numbers, and a question that's getting harder to ignore.

via: The Reptile Hun