Readers’ wildlife photographs

Mark Sturtevant has some biology lessons along with his insect photos:

When I go out to hunt for arthropods with my camera, I am pretty content to get pictures of a critter just sitting on a leaf. But it is a bonus if I can capture images of interesting behaviors. Here are two examples of such behaviors.

During last summer I would spend a lot of camera time stalking insects in our ‘sun garden’. This garden is dominated by pretty and aromatic Phlox flowers, but no insects visit them I think because the corollas are rather long. But late in the summer the situation changes when the large Eastern carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica) emerge and visit them in droves. However, they always disappear deep into the flower bunches rather than forage from the faces of the flowers. I was rather puzzled about that, and wondered what they were doing. The first two pictures show the answer: they are nectar robbers on these flowers. That is they go the to flower base and pierce it to get nectar without also getting pollen. This behavior was previously described here by reader Bruce Lyon for hummingbirds.

The next picture shows a routine scene: a male Eastern pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis) on its perch beside a lake. Younger males of this species are mostly green, like the females. But the males later change to this lovely color. Anyway, this male was very active. It would frequently fly out of my camera field of view, then return to the same spot. While it was off I would creep a little closer to get a better angle. After several of these excursions from its perch the hunter again returned to my field of view, but as the final picture will show it did not return alone…

When it next appeared in my camera viewfinder it was carrying a mating pair of damselflies! These may be a species of ‘dancer’ (genus Argia) but I am not sure of that. While I watched and took pictures, the dragonfly was steadily chewing up the female. Meanwhile the male desperately clawed at the rock to break away. He did manage to detach and fly off, but only just barely!

Dennis Mitton, whose website is My Selfish Gene, sends us a snake:

Here’s a shot of a baby copperhead [Agkistrodon contrortrix] greeting me as I left the house to go running one night. They are common here in South Carolina but aren’t often seen as they blend in so well with our native landscape. This guy sticks out like a sore thumb. Per the State of SC they are uncommonly docile unless aggressively roused. I grabbed this little guy with a garden rake and he – she – rode it quietly while I walked a few hundred yards down the road to release it into some woods.

Reader Anne-Mari Cournoyer a climber and leader of outdoor expeditions to remote places (including those to the frozen north where you must drag your own sled of noms and equipment), further honors Squirrel Appreciation Day:

All that thinking about squirrels last night reminded me of that photo taken during my climbing years. A little friend, regular visitor of our packs, very interested by our climbing ropes (oops! not a good thing for our safety!) If I am not mistaken: a Cascade golden-mantled ground squirrel, Spermophilus saturatus.