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?