MacMe

Yeah, the eyes look fake, which I'm sure they aren't

Correct! Actually, that is a Great Blue Heron. Not sure how you got a mule deer out of that one. 😉

I watched a robber fly carry off a huge grasshopper one time. The hopper must have been 3-4 times bigger than the robber. Robbers don't have that hunched thorax for nothin'!

Ichneumon wasps are cool. Some, like this one, will drill into wood with the ovipositor to sting an insect larva and lay an egg on it. How they can pinpoint larva like this is beyond me. All ichneumon wasps are parasitic

Good tactic for plants too

Have you spotted any of their larval burrows? The larva ambushes prey as the walk fast and use their heads to block the entrance. Burrows are about the width of a pencil.

Red touches black, you're okay Jake. Red touches yellow, you're a dead fellow

There aren't many out in the wild right now (2019 marked the 5th year in a row with >500 birds), and even fewer between the migratory route between their summer and winter roosts. check out their range, hopefully your near one of the spots

I'm not good with hawks. Is this a red-shouldered? 1/4 Aransas NWR

Got one! I did see a pair way far away and barely discernable in Aransas NWR. I also saw a pair that were much closer to the road near Goose Island State Park, Texas. Both sighting Jan 4, 2021. This photo is at the latter location.

Sure looks like it! Man, Merlin ID never brought this up as an option

but all the female/immature males I have looked at do not look anywhere near blue

Jan 4, Aransas NWR, Texas. It has red eyes, could it be albino? I suppose not, since it has black feathers

A couple days old, but this photograph looks like an impressionist painting

Is this a breeding male? It doesn't have the black unibrow. Last week in Aransas NWR, southern TX