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The hotel now has two kitchen cats, Smokey and Bandit. They are brothers. This one is Bandit. They were abandoned in a taped-up cardboard box by the roadside not far from the hotel. Luckily someone decided to open the box and see what was inside it.

The two kittens were adopted as hotel kitchen cats/chef's cats.

Not N. defodiens, N. nigrita, or N. vespilloides.

• Cordate pronotum
• Orange antennal club
• Long basal procoxa hair (img 23-24)
• Dense metasternum pubescence(?)
• img 25-26 no bald spots behind meoscoxa (excludes N. hybridus)
• Pubescent metepimeron (img 29-30)
• Straight hind tibia (last 2 images)

I believe this is N. guttula based on the mix of a hairy metasternum and metepimeron, long basal procoxa hairs, straight hind tibia, and the elytra pattern.

This observation features a photo of a mating pair of two different species in the same genus. They were on a Giant Milkweed Tree. This observation is now declared to be for the bug on the right.

Follow this (new) link for the observation of the bug on the left:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/216288604

I had originally assumed that these bugs were both Oncopeltus fasciatus, and so I had labelled the first photo observation accordingly.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/214673706

However, then it was pointed out to me by @fabienpiednoir and @callicladium that there are two species here. This is in fact an example of interspecies mating, so I just now duplicated that first observation in order to be able to create this one.

The gulls are facing out into the air above "Hells Gate", an open area of sometimes very turbulent saltwater.

It is situated where the water from the Long Island Sound mixes with the East River, which is a tidal inlet, and the Harlem River, which joins up to the west with the Hudson River.

The NYC area has some complex estuarine geography.

This beautiful blue pea plant was growing on Mansa's farm, although it seemed to be a weed rather than a deliberate planting.

I don't know whether this is Clitoria ternatea, or another species in the same genus.

The flame tree in full flower in one of the two town squares. This is where we would wait for the bus back to where we were staying.

You can see the dormant volcano, Nevis Peak, in the background of this shot.

This wild alligator was roaming around a suburban neighborhood which backs up to a lake and to a nature park (Flatwoods Park). He was first found in a garage and later next door before he settled in a front lawn for the night. The weather was sunny and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This has been identified as the American alligator because of its location (geographically and habitat-wise), overlapped jaws, wide snout, and distinctive dark coloration.