A tale of chipmunks and beetles

[Back to Lovell for this post!]

I tend to think of chipmunks as seed eaters, whether from my bird feeder, or straight off the plant. I’ve also posted in the past about them eating my flower buds (grrr..), and adult beetles. The other day (spring here in Maine, after a long hard winter), I saw one sniffing the lawn at the edge of my flower bed:

Then it began to dig, enthusiastically, until its head was underground:

Success. It came up with a grub, which it seemed to find tasty:

The earth on its whiskers, and the hole at its feet, are evidence of the excavation:

In early spring, they’re desperate for protein after a diet of nothing but seeds and nuts all winter. The beetle grubs are beginning to move, and the chipmunks use smell, hearing, and tactile cues via their sensitive noses, to find these grubs. Just so long as it chooses to remove the kind of grub that gardeners dislike, it’s a win-win situation.

So one poor grub didn’t get the chance to grow into a beetle of some kind, but the same day, getting my vegetable beds ready for planting, I disturbed this emerald Six-spotted Green Tiger Beetle, Cicindela sexguttata:

It has large white mandibles, visible here, and hunts for tinier insects and spiders. You’d think that dazzling coloring would be dysfunctional for a carnivorous predator like this, but apparently not. It is quite common, about 1/2″ long, and is easy to see because it likes sunny patches, but it moves fast and rarely stays still, so it’s hard to photograph.