Photo Essay: Critters, Creatures and Other Wild Things

The blue dasher dragonfly is seen most often near mountain ponds, lakes and other still waters.

Deer, such as this fawn, are plentiful on Beech Mountain, North Carolina.

This stag beetle staredown happened on Hibriten Mountain, Lenoir, North Carolina.

Of this bear family, Bill Lea writes, “I was photographing a mother bear and her four cubs in Great Smoky Mountains National Park when another mother bear wandered into the area behind me. The mother with four cubs stood up on her hind feet to see what was happening in the distance, while her four cubs jumped on the side of the tree ready to climb to safety if their mom gave the cue. It is important to note that bears often stand on their hind feet to see off into the distance—this is not an attack position. The other mother bear veered off in another direction and all returned to normal.”

A chipmunk peers out along the forest floor in search of food.

A juvenile Eastern newt climbs up a fern leaf along the Laurel Falls Trail at Laurel Run Park in Church Hill, Tennessee.

Sallie Woodring relates, of this photo taken in Valle Crucis, North Carolina: “The bluebirds were going in and out of their nest box, and then came out to light on this fence post. As I was photographing them, the male flew on top of the female. It was so beautiful to see this act of intimacy.”

Bobcats are shy, elusive and well camouflaged, so they are not often seen by visitors to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where this shot was taken.

Eastern fence lizards are found in woodlands and grasslands.

Two pipeline swallowtails flutter along a patch of flowers along the South Holston River in Tennessee.

Sallie Woodring writes of this barred owl: “He had a squirrel in his mouth when he flew in the tree, hence the blood on his beak. He had no fear of me whatsoever as he peered down at me.”

Chipping sparrows make nests annually on the Scott farm in North Carolina.