By RAY WYCHE
Staff Writer

Nothing is wasted in nature and Johnny McNeill’s bird feeder on his pier at Lake Waccamaw offers proof of the fact.

The flower-bedecked structure has a squirrel-proof feeder hanging over the water. As songbirds, mostly house finches, poke their bills into the food container for a snack of sunflower and other seeds, some feed invariably falls onto the lake surface, where a pair of cruising mallard ducks hang around, on the lookout for a meal without the trouble of hunting and diving.

To get the falling feed, the ducks have to be fast; as the songbirds feed and scatter the seed on top of the water, heads of several turtles – yellow-bellied sliders – can be seen popping out of the water and grabbing an easy-to-get meal. And if the ducks and turtles fail to capture the fallen bird feed before it begins sinking, schools of saucer-size fish are waiting near the lake bottom to make sure nothing they can eat goes to waste.

It’s a four-tiered feeding station – songbirds, ducks, turtles and fish – and an example of the resourcefulness of wildlife taking advantage of food that is easiest to get, and of nature wasting nothing.