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Thursday, June 19, 2014

Let's get right down to business. Today's Backyard Bugs of the Day:

 A circus act of wasps.

 Okay, we all know what they are doing.

 My theory is that the larger wasp on the bottom is the female, and the other two are potential suitors. Either they are both vying to mate, or one has mated and is protecting his genetic interests, while the other is hoping to have a chance to make his own DNA deposit.

 These wasps win the prize for having the most gorgeous wings I have ever seen. Well, you know I am a sucker for the color blue.

 Interesting that the males have white on their faces, but the female doesn't. She did not appear to be able to fly with them on her back, but she was able to walk and climb - though she did sometimes topple to the side.

 Look at those gorgeous wings!!!

 At one point there was a tussle for position.

 This resulted in a tumbling ball of wasps.

 I don't know if the males were fighting each other, or the female was trying to ditch them both.

The last I saw of them they were marching off into the grass together.

I took over a hundred pictures of this fascinating trio.

A Backyard Bud of the Day was a real challenge to find:

A couple of random bugs:

 I am not sure if these are both the same kind of not - sometimes the placement of things makes it hard for me to get other views. From this weird angle they don't look the same, though.

A rare treat - or maybe I should say a rare bird treat - Backyard Bird of the Day:

 A hawk of some kind - I am just as bad at bird identification as I am at bug identification. You can't see them in this picture, but there was a pair of robins in this tree, and they did not want this hawk to be there.

 Eventually the robins convinced it to leave.

And it flew right over my head. And I didn't have my camera on the right settings to take this picture - there was no time for adjustments. It would appear, however, that this is NOT a red tail hawk.

I really did not find a lot interesting in the yard today. It was too muggy and gross after a morning rain to want to be out there long.

No actual spiders for today's Arachnid Appreciation:

 A discarded spider exoskeleton

Harvestman and apparently dead harvestman. So I am now going to conclude that that thing on its head is not a parasite, because they all seem to have it. The red thing on its leg, however, I don't know...