The Accidental Bee Trap

A friend is moving away and gave me her pretty glass hummingbird feeder, the kind with three separate little containers, each with a red glass flower in it which is the channel through which the hummingbirds drink the sugar water. Sadly, it became a bee & wasp trap. The throats of the flowers are large enough to allow the insects through, so they crawled down and then got stuck in the sugar water and died. This is a terrible, terrible thing. I will have to find another use for the little feeder, or give it to someone else who has fewer bees and wasps.

The Hummingbird Moth

In the garden Sunday evening, arranging all the beautiful plants that Carolyn B has given me as she packs up and disposes of possessions in anticipation of her move, I was near the red sage that the hummingbirds love (the one Hamilton used to park under to snag them, before we curtailed his early-morning outdoor activities) and suddenly a little hummingbird moth was right in front of my face, flapping its little moth wings like mad as it had a go at the sage. It didn't outright hum, as the larger one that we saw last year did. But it was spectacular nonetheless.
The next day Hugh saw it outside the kitchen window and swears that a hummingbird bird came along and tried to flirt with it before realizing it was the wrong species.
Sadly, we have yet to capture one of these on film....

The Night of the Spiders

I was in the kitchen on Tuesday night, post-dinner, putting some dishes in the dishwasher. Suddenly on one return to sink from washer, there was a giant spider there in the sink! It seemed to be wet, and I think perhaps it came out of the drain that leads to the disposal. It sat there in its wetness of in sort of a stupor; who could blame it? I scooped it up in a plastic tub and put it outside on the front porch.
Less than 30 minutes later I was in the big chair in the front room, watching a spot of telly before going to bed, and (suddenly again) there appeared on the wall behind the television another giant spider! I ran for the camera yet again. (I do that a lot at the cabin.) After the photo shoot, this second spider made its way up the wall and then disappeared into a little space where the wall meets the cedarwood window trim. That corner is a favorite of spiders and scorpions. I thought they were both were wolf spiders, but looking at the pictures now they seem to be different varieties. As I said, that first guy was wet, so it's hard to tell.

The Thrashing Caterpillar

On my way to the outdoor shower on Saturday morning, I stopped to visit with Fritz on the back porch. There he was, all innocent and cute, and there were rustly, thrashy noises coming from the garden. "Oh no!" I thought, "he caught a bird and it is lying over there in death throes! Or in wounded throes!" and I ran over to look. Nothing readily apparent, but still could I hear leaves moving about. I waited and waited and finally my eyes honed in on a little caterpillar! Or rather, a rather large caterpillar. And it was thrashing like mad! It thrashed itself right out of the dry leaves under some plants and onto the rockwork of the back terraced area. It started crawling toward Rosa Winchester Cathedral, with periodic fits of thrashing. On the rock, after thrashing, it would find itself pointed a different way each time and so would start crawling off in that new direction. I was a little worried about him being on the very hot rock so I got a leaf and tried to help him onto it, which caused another fit of thrashing; so I got a larger leaf, tricked him onto it with no thrashing, and deposited him in the tall green grass of the kitchen garden. I could hear periodic thrashing throughout my shower, and could even hear him about an hour later when I went out to see how he was doing. I have never seen such a thing before. Film to be posted as soon as I edit out the parts where I got distracted and the camera without me filmed things like my feet and the towel I was wearing.

The Dog Days of Summer

I had a whole month of no entries in between Scorpions 6 & 7. The dog days of summer are here. It is hot, dry, tiring, indeed nigh exhausting. There is not a lot going on with birds or bugs or cats or me or anything; we are all too tired. The hummingbirds are the only thing that show no signs of weariness.

Scorpion #7

Saturday 7.29.06, afternoon or evening--6ish?
Can't believe there have been only 7 scorpions this year so far. And this last one barely counts. I found it on the porch under one of the recycle bins, half-smashed, apparently from me moving the bin over while he was under it, poor thing. I might have let him live, seeing as he wasn't even in the house.