Woke Up This Morning To ABSOLUTELY NO BIRDS WHATSOEVER When We Always Have A Couple Dozen Every Morning

Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), taken January 30, 2025, in Georgia, US

My best raptor photos yet! It's not very often that they sit long enough for me to get any decent photos. This guy was being harassed by a crow and was kind enough to sit and let me take pictures while he yelled back. This hawk is part of a pair that's been in my woods for probably almost a decade (if it's the same pair, that is)! They've had to relocate their nesting site in recent years due to neighbors messing with trees, but they seem to be having success still, which is great!

So many gall parasitoids! they were all going to town on those Amphibolips galls, occasionally pushing eachother off them in order to oviposit

Genus Torymus, Genus Sycophila Genus Eurytoma, Genus Torymus Genus Sycophila, Genus Sycophila Genus Eurytoma, Genus Sycophila Family Torymidae, Genus Eurytoma

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), juvenile, taken May 9, 2025, in Georgia, US

A disheveled young cardinal stopping for a few sips! Someone had been in the bath prior and made it absolutely filthy with dirt, but this guy didn't really seem to mind. The bath water is replaced daily, but it tends to get dirty pretty fast if there are lots of baths in a day. The birds could just go to the koi pond literally 5 feet away, but I guess it's too scary for everyone but the song sparrows!

Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta), male, taken July 30, 2024, in Georgia, US

Dragonflies remain fierce contenders for my favorite photo subjects, at least amongst bugs! For their size and speed, they're very cooperative. I've even had some take advantage of the mosquito cloud following me to grab a snack! This guy just sat on the tip of this stick and helped me make some sick looking pictures!

I'm also in Georgia and my university has a herpetology club that does nature walks, I love seeing your renditions of the species we usually see!!

I'm glad you enjoy the little guys I find!! There are so many wonderful species here that don't get much attention because they're easy to miss. I'd love to include more herps in my selection, but I have horrible luck finding anything that isn't a toad!

Have an anole for the road, one of the few non-toad herps that I see somewhat regularly:

Eastern Calligrapher (Toxomerus geminatus), female, taken April 12, 2025, in Georgia, US

A nice hoverfly perching on a flower. While hoverflies are out year-round here, they're in full swing now! Along with dozens of adults, I've started to see larvae too! The larvae of many hoverflies (though not all) feed on small invertebrates, aphids being a favorite of some (aptly named "Aphideaters"). As adults, many become herbivores, feeding on plant nectar. This is the same strategy most insects employ. It's much easier to survive if adults and babies of the same species eat different things at different life stages—less competition!

Putnam's Jumping Spider (Phidippus putnami), juvenile female, taken May 7, 2024, in Georgia, US

I always love it when jumping spiders stare at the camera. I have so many pictures of their big, shiny eyes looking up at me. This little girl was a great model! Very cute!

i'm trying to write about The Wonders Of Nature again and it's like...such a Big thing that has a strangle hold on peoples brains its hard to articulate it powerfully enough to break down that barrier.

Essentially trying to say, "There is so much stuff in the natural world that is so beautiful and so cool it puts anything your imagination could come up with to shame. And I don't just mean in a remote jungle reserve somewhere, I mean where YOU live. HOME."

but it's just hard to convey the Intensity of it. cause im not exaggerating when I say that the coolness and fantastic beauty of the world so far exceeds the access most people have to information and experience of it, that starting to learn can provoke this kind of defensive reaction or even like. automatic dismissal or blindness to these experiences when they DO happen.

At least it happened to me. I remember when i was a kid a purple passionflower grew in our yard and i automatically assumed it was someone's weird garden plant that had escaped, rather than a wild plant that was growing naturally in its habitat.

it just kind of breaks the logic of the world I guess? why, in a world where purple passionflower grows by itself, would the landscape be a razed, sterilized wasteland of turfgrass maintained by homeowners that destroy every unfamiliar weed like theyre fighting off a zombie apocalypse

when u are holding a hammer everything looks like a nail -> when u are holding a point and shoot camera every sight looks incomparably ephemerally beautiful

Banded Snipe Flies (Chrysopilus fasciatus), males, taken May 26, 2024, in Georgia, US

What handsome flies! These guys only fly for about a month here, but I love to see them while they're in season! I've yet to see a female, but maybe someday I'll get lucky and see a pair breeding!