Red-shouldered Hawks (Buteos Lineatus), Taken March 2, 2025, In Georgia, US

Today's bug of the day is the common silverfish! I hope you like it I've never drawn a silverfish before so I hope I didn't get any of the major details wrong :]

Spotted Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus conanti), taken September 10, 2024, in Georgia, US

Enjoying the sun! It's pretty unusual to see salamanders sitting out in the open like this, so I initially thought this guy was dead. I ended up freaking him out when i put my hand near him to see, and I feel kind of bad about it, but I also really needed to know if he was alive lol... He was in close proximity to a large banded fishing spider that was also enjoying the sunshine, so I think this was just a nice spot! I hope he came back later and caught some more rays!

Gray Goggle Eye (Holcocephala calva), taken July 19, 2023, in Georgia, US

One of the first pictures I took with my clip-on macro lens. The ones that you clip onto your phone camera are extremely good for getting decent quality images of small inverts. These robber flies are surprisingly brave considering their size, much more so than their larger cousins, who let you get just close enough and then fly a couple feet away lol!

if you do not live in the uk or north america it is your legal obligation to download inaturalist and start uploading. please everyone who uses it is in north america or the uk we need obs that arent here

Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens), female, taken March 7, 2025, in Georgia, US

A woodpecker sitting like a perching bird for once in its life... These guys are so funny to watch, especially when they sit on the feeder perches and look around them, flinging their whole body in every direction to get all the best angles. It's quite impressive, honestly, even if they look ridiculous doing it!

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

Chalcid Wasp (Brasema rhadinosa), female, taken April 12, 2025, in Georgia, US

Feast your eyes on some (okay-ish) pictures of this gorgeous woman!! She was quite the pain to photograph because she would not sit still ever. She did, however, stay wandering around the top of the same boardwalk post for 3 hours. I have no idea why, but she clearly liked that spot. It ended up being helpful because it allowed me to spend as much time as I needed trying to get decent pictures. A wasp as thin and flat as she is sucks to get in focus, but the effort was worth it! The pictures don't do her justice, but you can still see how pretty she is!

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia), taken May 27, 2024, in Georgia, US

Just a beautiful, solid sparrow! The more I photograph them, the more I come to like sparrows. They're much more colorful than they seem from afar, and I love all of their intricate patterning! This individual sat very politely for me, what a champ.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea), male, taken March 21, 2025, in Georgia, US

A fun new birding lifer for me! This guy was a pain to photograph, though that's only partially because he was flitting around constantly and mostly because the sun was making it hard to see if my camera was in focus or not :'). I got some nice pictures, though, and a video of him singing I have to review. This bird's song is so quiet that I'm not even sure my camera picked it up over the ambiance. It's like a whisper!

Fowler's Toad (Anaxyrus fowleri), taken September 2, 2024, in Georgia, US

Just a polite toad. Fowler's toads the most common Anuran I see in my area, but I always enjoy coming across them regardless. They breed like crazy in my koi pond every summer, and it's always fun to see the tiny froglets emerging from the water!