Last night we found this absolute unit by the restrooms.

Some sort of ginormous beetle.

And today while hiking we saw a lizard with a blue back! idgiebay can post a picture when she's around.

Plus many things that have tried to get into our sister in law's food so far: seagulls, squirrels, and last night's trash pandas that only our sister in law was awake to see.

whoa next level horns on that beetle

Right? I've never seen anything like it!

Plus we saw a pair of turkey vultures flying really low over our destination when hiking this morning.

oooooohhhh

And there's a small family of ravens in the campground. Right now one of them is making some neat noises.

But possibly my favorite thing so far was coming out of our tent to find one of the ravens sunbathing right outside!

At first I was worried he was sick or having heat stroke or something. I've never seen a bird do that before.

Then I went back in the tent to look it up and by the time I came out again he was chilling with the fam.

Oh, just found this evidence of our nightly visitors.

Looks like trash panda footy prints to me.

Trying to identify the beetle. It may be a darkling beetle (what a metal name)?

We think the lizard was an island fence lizard!

lizardo!

So basically our usual lizards, but fancier.

We actually saw two at first! They were bobbing heads at each other, but one got scared away when we showed up.

heh heh the one who held his ground won

That's what I was thinking. I wasn't sure if it was a mating dance or stand off.

swallows!!

Desperately trying to identify this big water bird we just saw!

The closest we've come to is maybe an immature yellow-crowned night heron?

Or... another giant, white bird just passed us right before we saw that one so maybe it was a juvenile of that species... Still looking.

They came back! Both the white bird and the grey bird are hanging out in the same tree now.

We thought they may be a parent and juvenile child, but we're pretty sure now that the white one is a great white egret and their babies are white.

Also they seem kind of pissed that the grey bird decided to hang out in their roost (the campers at that spot said the egret sleeps there).

Anyone more familiar with birds have any idea what the dappled grey one could be? I think it kind of looks like a young yellow crowned night heron or maybe a bittern. Not sure about the last one because I think this one's head is thicker than a bittern. More egret or heron like.

Wish we could have gotten better pictures, but they're way up in that tree and it's getting dark.

Ooh, maybe a black crowned night heron juvenile? Hmmm...

I think that might be it! A juvenile black crowned night heron. We were able to get a better view of it than pictures and I feel pretty sure of it. I'm definitely not finding anything closer.

They're in wetlands across North America, and we're right on the ocean with a very marshy area just up from the shore.

OMG I teased the poor thing!!

It finally started squawking so I was able to confirm what it was!

And it started to respond to the clips of the calls that I was playing!

But I did it too long and it took off looking for the "other heron." I feel so guilty now. T_T

It's still squawking in the hills nearby omg I'm so cruel.

Feeling so guilty never doing it again omg omg omg.

Every squawk is a dagger in my heart.