Hatrick Wildlife Photography

05/03/2026

Every front door in a suburban neighborhood has at least nine species raising young within earshot. Each one brings something different to the nest.

A robin carries earthworms — whole, still moving, draped across her beak. She makes roughly two hundred trips a day.

A chickadee brings caterpillars, one at a time, to a cavity in a dead branch. She averages a delivery every twelve minutes for fifteen hours.

A cardinal cracks sunflower seeds and feeds the mash beak-to-beak. His nestlings get the softened paste.

🐦 A house wren hauls spiders, moths, and beetles into a cavity no larger than a fist. She feeds six to eight young on a rotating schedule.

A mourning dove produces crop milk — a thick secretion from the lining of her throat. No other backyard bird manufactures its own food.

A blue jay caches insects and seeds, retrieving them throughout the day. Her trips are fewer but the payload is larger.

A downy woodpecker pulls larvae from bark furrows and ferries them to a cavity she drilled herself.

A barn swallow catches flying insects on the wing — mid-air intercepts at speeds most people can't track.

A tufted titmouse carries one seed at a time, holds it with her feet, and hammers it open before delivering the pieces.

🌿 Nine species. Nine strategies. None of them learned from a book. All of them happening between the porch and the mailbox.

The front yard is a distribution center. The parents are the logistics network. 🌱

04/30/2026

Gif of Raccoon series at Tifft Nature Preserve

04/25/2026

The orioles are moving north. In much of the eastern half of the country, they arrive sometime in the next few weeks — and they scout food sources during a narrow window when they first show up.

The rose-breasted grosbeak is on the same trajectory. He'll appear at a sunflower feeder like he never left.

Ruby-throated hummingbirds are working their way north too. Your feeder should be up and clean before she arrives, not after.

The caterpillar bloom is building. By early May, oaks will be producing the caterpillars that nesting birds across your yard depend on.

And the canopy is closing. The bare-branch window that makes warblers easy to spot right now is almost over. The warblers will still be here. You just won't see them as easily.

🌿 To be ready:

- Hang a hummingbird feeder now — four parts water, one part white sugar, no dye
- Put out grape jelly and an orange half for orioles — a platform feeder or a spike works
- Leave caterpillar-heavy branches alone through June — that's the food supply for nesting birds
- These are the last easy warbler-watching days before the leaves fill in — use them

The next wave is already moving. The feeders that are up first get the scouts 🐦

04/22/2026

04/17/2026

Wet and foggy morning at MNWR 4/17/2026

04/11/2026

04/11/2026

Best 👀 looks back at me

04/11/2026

In every Bald Eagle nest in the country right now, the same division of labor is running.

He hunts. She guards. And she's bigger.

Female Bald Eagles are roughly a third larger than males — heavier body, wider wingspan, stronger grip. In most bird species, the sexes look identical or the male is bigger. In raptors, the female is almost always the larger bird. The eagle nest is her territory. She decides who approaches 🦅

The daily schedule at the nest right now:

- He leaves at dawn to fish — circling over rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, diving feet-first when he spots movement near the surface
- He delivers the fish to the nest edge. She takes it.
- She tears it into small pieces and feeds the chicks beak to beak
- He leaves to hunt again. She stays and guards.

He doesn't feed the chicks directly. She controls the food distribution. If there are two or three chicks, she feeds the biggest one first — the one that reaches highest and begs loudest. The smallest chick gets what's left.

This isn't random cruelty. It's insurance. In a good food year, all three survive. In a bad year, the strongest survives because she invested the most food in the chick most likely to make it.

The eagle nest you can see from the highway right now is running this system every day from dawn to dark 🌿

04/10/2026

I just dropped a twig into the water and stood completely still. A minnow swam toward it. I ate the minnow.

I'm a green heron. I fish with bait.

I find small objects — twigs, feathers, insects, bread crumbs if they're available — and place them on the water's surface. Then I crouch at the edge with my beak an inch above the water and wait. When a small fish investigates the floating object, I strike. My neck extends to nearly double its resting length in a fraction of a second.

Most birds hunt by searching. I hunt by setting a trap and waiting for the prey to come to me. Almost no other wild bird does this.

I'm small for a heron. About the size of a crow. Stocky, dark green back, russet neck, yellow legs. I don't stand in the open like a great blue heron. I crouch in dense vegetation at the water's edge, invisible until I strike.

🐦 Where to find me:

- Any slow-moving water with overhanging vegetation — creeks, pond edges, drainage ditches, retention ponds behind shopping centers
- I'm in the brush, not on the open shoreline. Look for a dark shape crouched low at the edge, motionless
- When startled, I fly with a sharp "skeow" call and rapid wingbeats. You usually hear me leave before you see me
- I just arrived from Central America. I'll be at your nearest water all summer

I placed the bait. I waited. The fish came to me 🌿