Soaking up the sun

  

Lucky day at work today (25 February 2025)!  We were headed outside to eat lunch on the deck when I noticed a very large hill of freshly dug soil...and an American Badger resting right next to it!

The badger mostly spent time lying in the sun, but it looked around a few times, so here are a couple of different views (below).  Note: We watched the badger from far away, so these photos are a little misleading.  I took them with a large zoom lens and then cropped the photos heavily.

 

 

Hooray for coastal prairies and mustelids!

Horseshoes washing ashore

  

A nectophore from Hippopodius on Salmon Creek Beach.  Although this photo is from late December 2024, we saw quite a few of these nectophores on the beach tonight (21 February 2025).

For more information about these structures, check out earlier posts:

"Hippos" on the beach from 16 April 2015

Little hippos on the sand from 21 February 2021

P.S.  My eyebrows always go up when there's an exact match between today's date and a previous date with the same topic, e.g., today's post on 21 February 2025 and the earlier post on 21 February 2021.

White and gold

  

White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) in our backyard in Cotati on 19 February 2025.

Close to the bark

  

I returned home from the farmers' market to hear a Brown Creeper calling in our front yard.  Luckily my camera wasn't too far away, and the creeper spent some time feeding in a few different trees.  

Here it is searching crevices in the bark:

 

 

The creeper appeared to be successful locating prey, but the prey was too small for me to see while watching.  However, zooming in on photos later revealed a couple of prey items.

 

A small insect larva at the tip of the bill:

 

 

 

 

And possibly a small spider?

 

 

 

 

Turned out there were two creepers, both feeding along different tree trunks.

 

I love how well Brown Creepers blend in with the landscape of the trees—  the bark and lichens and mosses:

 

 

 

I'm also grateful for such wonderful visitors to our yard!

In the shape of a heart

  

These nudibranchs are white
with some orange, too
They're sending a Valentine's wish
directly to you!

Mating pair of Cockerell's Dorid nudibranchs (Limacia cockerelli), photographed on 29 January 2025.

 ♥ Happy Valentine's Day! ♥ 

Gold stripes and gold flecks

  

Beautiful gold-flecked hermit crab in a Three-colored Top Snail (Calliostoma tricolor) shell.  Photographed on 28 January 2025.

Lone ranger and the hermit

  

A couple of neighborhood birds in Cotati today (8 February 2025).

 Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum), above, and Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus), below.