[New post] Why I’ll never change, what will be eaten?

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Why I’ll never change, what will be eaten?

by quietsolopursuits

Beauty may not be art, but don't try to tell that to nature, at least not the way that my eyes see things.

Canopy of color

But, along with the appreciation I have for nature as an artist, I also have a deep curiosity about wildlife, the way that it behaves, and what different critters eat. So. I'm going to devote the rest of this post to photos of wildlife that I've captured as they are go about their daily routines of finding suitable food to eat.

With squirrels, that's usually rather easy.

Red squirrel and hickory nut

Butterflies are easy too, they drink the nectar from flowers.

Monarch butterfly on an aster

However, with some other forms of wildlife, things can be a bit tougher to photograph, as most birds and other critters try to stay hidden as much as they can. Case in point, I had this ruby-crowned kinglet in my sights, but it ducked behind a leaf as I was pressing the shutter release.

Ruby-crowned kinglet

Sometimes, Mother Nature fools critters into thinking they are going to get a meal, and they may, but they are also helping another organism reproduce, as this stinkhorn fungi does. The fruiting body of the stinkhorn fungi, at some stage in development, is covered with a foul-smelling slime. The foul-smelling slime is calculated to attract flies and other insects, who land on the slime and gobble it up. Little do the insects know that they have been duped into covering their little insect feet with stinkhorn spores, and have ingested spores into their digestive tracts! Later, these spores are dispersed by the unwitting insects, and the stinkhorn life-cycle continues elsewhere.

Stinkhorn fungi and fly

I caught this whitetail doe munching on what I think is a fern, or a fern-like plant that is quite common here.

Whitetail doe eating a fern

But, she heard the shutter of my camera going, and stopped eating to check to see if I presented any danger to her.

Whitetail doe on alert

Other times, I get lucky and the critter that I'm photographing is more intent on a meal than it is in worrying about me, as this pileated woodpecker was as it lapped up ants that it had dislodged from within a tree.

Pileated woodpecker lapping up ants with its tongue

I'm not sure if this downy woodpecker was eating aphids from under leaves, or if the aphids were just hitching a ride.

Male downy woodpecker with aphids on its bill

I do know that this catbird was chowing down on grapes.

Grey catbird eating grapes

Despite the fact that sparrows are primarily seed eaters, this juvenile white-crowned sparrow apparently felt the need for a salad on this day.

Juvenile white-crowned sparrow eating plants

Unfortunately, I never got a photo showing what this red-bellied woodpecker was finding to eat, but the photos show the way that woodpeckers use their long tongues to probe for insects deep in wood.

Red-bellied woodpecker probing for food

I just posted a photo of a catbird eating grapes, but that species is omnivorous, eating both plant life as shown earlier, as well as insects, as these two photos show.

Grey catbird eating an insect

Thistle seeds are a favorite food of the American goldfinch.

American goldfinch eating thistle seeds

I don't know what species of wasp this is, or if it's even a wasp, but it was enjoying eating the pears that had fallen from a tree.

Wasp eating the fruit of a pear tree

Sometimes, it looks as though a bird has found something to eat, and it has, but the bird doesn't eat what it has found, it is chewing the food for one of its young, as this cardinal was doing.

Male northern cardinal chewing up a beetle for its offspring

Unfortunately, I missed the food exchange this time. If you look very closely at that last photo, you can see a young cardinal hiding in the leaves in the upper left of the frame, waiting for dad to come with the food. But, I did catch this exchange and posted a series of photos earlier.