Every year a small patch of wild sunflowers pops up in my front yard.  And every year I’m amazed at how many living things use them for food and shelter. Take last week:

One flower had this teeny, tiny praying mantis nymph.

This flower was so popular, it had a skipper butterfly and a digger bee. Can you see the bee?

Every morning a small flock of lesser goldfinches hang from the sunflower seed heads, pulling out the seeds. I have never gotten a good photo or video, but this is what they look like:

 

The birds drop and scatter enough seeds so that next year there’s sure to be another patch of sunflowers sprouting up.

Do you grow sunflowers?  What visitors do you see?