Bristle Millipede (Genus Polyxenus), Taken March 21, 2025, In Georgia, US

Metric Paper Wasp (Polistes metricus), taken April 18, 2025, in Georgia, US

A beautiful, sleek wasp in the afternoon sun! This individual was an extremely good sport and let me get in very close for photos! Typically, paper wasps are a bit skittish and prefer to keep their distance, but this one just seemed curious. It's always a good day when a wasp stops buzzing around and lets me get some nice pictures! They're usually so busy that it's impossible to get anything!

Carolina Mantis (Stagmomantis carolina), female, taken September 20, 2024, in Georgia, US

What a strange looking stick! Praying mantises are wonderful insects, and they make the most perfect photo subjects. Some will even walk right on your hand if you hold it out for them. That's fun for about 3 minutes until they're clinging to your sleeve or on your back and wont leave lol!

Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater), juvenile, being fed by a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia), taken May 9, 2025, in Georgia, US

A fat cowbird chick being fed by its song sparrow foster parent! It seems as though our only song sparrow pair were chosen by the cowbirds as fosters this spring. Luckily, song sparrows are known to attempt to nest up to four times in a season, so they have plenty of chances left to raise their own brood! Once this baby cowbird becomes independent, it will meet with other baby cowbirds and begin its life as a young adult! For now, though, it's content to take handouts from mom and dad!

I feel as though the concept is much more common knowledge now, but to those who come across this and don't know: cowbirds are nest parasites, meaning they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds so they don't have to raise their babies themselves. They do this because building a nest and caring for young is extremely costly for females and may result in a lower chick yield than creating more eggs (up to 40) and laying them in an array of host nests does. The cowbird chick often hatches before the host nest's chicks, grows faster, becomes larger, and is louder, leading to the host chicks being neglected and often dying before fledging. While this is sad, bird parents have evolved to account for the possibility of being parasitized and will often nest multiple times in a season to ensure they have at least one healthy brood of their own chicks! Many bird species are also extremely good at recognizing cowbird eggs and can either eject them from the nest or destroy them before they hatch. Nest parasites are one of many natural population control agents that ensure native bird populations remain stable, so they are not a bad thing if the parasite is native, which cowbirds are in the US!

Juvenile Yellow-Crowned Night Heron of Judgement.

He knows what you did, you should be disappointed. Do better.

Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), taken March 9, 2025, in Georgia, US

Despite how common they seem to be for many other people, this is the first time I've ever seen a junco! It approached me from behind and I only realized it was there because I happened to see it out of the corner of my eye. I barely got a look before it flew off, so I had no idea what it was, only that it wasn't a bird I'd seen before. It took me another 10 minutes before I even saw it again, then another 5 or so for it to end up behind me where it started. In the end, I was able to get a good picture!

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

Eastern Fence Lizards (Sceloporus undulatus), taken October 6, 2024, in Georgia, US

I hiked a mountain and these guys were all over the top! Before this, I'd never seen this species despite living only 20 minutes from this mountain. They must prefer the more arid, primarily pine forest as opposed to my creekside, primarily deciduous one. I've been up this mountain several times before, but I guess I never cared to look for microfauna before. Not sure how I missed these guys!

American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis), taken February 27, 2025, in Georgia, US

A rather uncommon visitor appeared yesterday! In the past, we've had a decent goldfinch presence in the yard, but the past couple years they've been quite sparse. In their absence, other birds have grown more numerous, though, and I still see them elsewhere, so I assume they either left voluntarily or got pushed out by competition.

I actually think these are two different individuals, the first picture being a different bird, but I'm not sure since the lighting is different and I didn't see both at the same time lol. Maybe if I'm lucky it's a pair that's planning to nest here this spring :)

Frilly Grass Tubeworm Moth (Acrolophus mycetophagus), taken May 25, 2025, in Georgia, US

A beautiful cheerleader resting gracefully on a leaf... This moth is a puffball! I'm always excited to see new moths, and I was very excited to spot this tubeworm moth from afar! I love how fluffy and extravagant they look, almost like they're wearing a fur scarf. For this species in particular, I really like how the scales on its mid-wing black patterning are raised, though I didn't see that in reference images I looked at to ID it, so it may just be because this individual is young. Regardless, I wish this moth a very good beauty rest—it seems to be working!

Nomad Bees (Genus Nomada), taken May 5, 2025, in Georgia, US

Some little red bees! These guys are always super busy unless, of course, they're sleeping like in the third image! Yesterday the bees were quite gracious with their landing times, sitting still long enough for me to actually press the shutter button lol. Normally, they're flying around constantly, searching for the burrows of other bees to lay their eggs in!