Hummingbird vs. Preying Mantis

 

Earlier this summer, I found a little preying mantis in the basement.  I chased him down and took him outside.  A couple of weeks later, I found a preying mantis hanging out by the hummingbird feeders.  I wonder if it was the same one?

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I saw the hummingbirds interacting with him.  I went out and shooed them away from him because I thought they were aggravating him.  The next day, I read my newest “Birds and Blooms” magazine while I was eating lunch, and I was horrified to find that PREYING MANTISES (what’s the plural?) EAT HUMMINGBIRDS!!!

I couldn’t get out the door fast enough!!!  No stinking preying mantis was going to eat MY hummingbirds!

I scooped him up in a plastic McDonald’s cup and marched his little butt to the woods.  Granted, it’s a straight shot back to the feeders, but this lot is 2 acres, and I hoped the distance would confuse him (I guess it did since he hasn’t been back).

Mylo had eaten the rest of my sandwich by the time I got back in.

(YouTube has some awful video of humming birds getting attacked.)

Blogger Tags: humming birds, preying mantis

Bats! I have bats!!!!!

Oh, my goodness!  I’m thrilled!  I have bats!!!!  I don’t think they're living in the bat house (I’ll have to go check today), but they’re in my backyard, and that’s just about as good.

Mosquitos love me.

I hate mosquitos.

Bats eat mosquitos.

Therefore, I love bats.

Also, a million years ago, I got to batsit an injured bat for an hour while his human taught a chemistry lab.  The little guy clung upside down to the inside of the collar on my tee-shirt.  All you could see of him was a funny little lump on my chest with a tiny row of toes clipped to my collar.  I’ve loved bats since then.

Anyway, I called my parents to let them know I had bats flying and diving and twirling and darting all over the back yard.  They didn’t answer the phone.  Turns out they were watching their own bat show in their backyard!  Last night was the first time they’ve spotted bats this year, too.

“My” Hummingbirds

I know I have at least four little hummingbirds that are visiting the feeders on my deck. 

Three males are constantly fighting.  I’ve decided to name two of them “Hurricane” and “Tornado” because they will destroy anything in the violent path of their fighting (if they don’t kill themselves first).

At least one of the others is a female.  And, of course, there could be multiples of any of those three.

But, here’s a bit of a mystery…  according to my many bird books, ruby-throated hummingbirds are the only ones found east of the Mississippi.  The fourth little guy that’s visiting is NOT a ruby-throated.  But he also doesn’t look like any of the hummingbirds in the field guides I have. 

He moves so fast, I haven’t gotten a good look at him, but I think he’s a tad bigger than the others.  He has a dark head, back and wings, but his entire breast is BRIGHT YELLOWISH GREEN.  I can usually hear the birds as they zoom to the feeders.  He’s louder than the other ones, and he seems more curious and braver because he gets closer to me, hovering around my shoulders and the back of my head, and following me around the yard.

Of course, every time I’ve seen him, I’ve been camera-less.  Figures.  I’ll keep trying to capture him.

Here’s one of the males I rescued a couple of weeks ago from certain death in the jaws of a dog.  His fighter buddy companion was able to fly away after hitting the side of the house and bouncing into the yard.  This little guy was a bit too stunned and it took him about 10 minutes to recover.

Mud Daubers

Well…  I feel quite crappy.  I grew up being scared to death of “mud daubers.”  I just found a couple of mud “tubes” on the brick wall of my front porch.  I doused it with half a can of wasp spray and took off running, even though, nothing flew out.

I let it sit for about an hour before using a hoe to scrape it off the wall.

This is what came out:

Huh?  What are these things?  Spiders???? 

So, I came inside to look up what else lives in a mud dauber-type house, and this is what I found on Wikipedia: 

Organ pipe mud daubers are also an exceedingly docile species of wasp, and generally pleasant to have around, as they serve to keep spider populations down. Stings to humans are very rare, bordering on non-existent, although if squeezed, they will sting in self-defense. At first, I thought:  “Great…  now I’ve killed a bunch of harmless baby mud daubers.”  But then I went back to Wikipedia and Google and started clicking through links about mud daubers.

No, these AREN’T mud dauber babies.  The adult female collects a bunch of spiders by stinging and paralyzing them.  She carries them back to the mud tube, stuffs as many spiders as she can into the tube, lays an egg, seals the tube shut and starts on another tube.

So, now I’m like: “Great…  I still killed a bunch of harmless baby mud dauber eggs, AND I’VE GOT FRIGGING UGLY SPIDERS SOMEWHERE AROUND MY HOUSE THAT LOOK LIKE THIS!”

So…  what are these nasty things?  Are they good or bad?

P.S.  The picture really is no good so I went out and scooped up a little baggieful of the nasty things. 

They have a bulbous body with a slightly pointed butt.  They are more smooth than hairy with long, spindly striped legs.  They are a funny grey-ish green color.  Some of them have a little bit of black detail (though one has much stronger black markings than the others).  Their coloring is messed up, though, from being mud dauber paralyzed and then doused with half a can of wasp spray.

After rooting around on Google images for awhile, all I’ve been able to determine is that *I think* it’s a member of the Theridiidae family (?).  Ick.  Spiders give me the eebie jeebies.

Feed me!!! Feed me!!! Feed me!!!

 

Bless their little hearts!  The little guys are so ugly they’re cute!

I think they’re house finches.  I found them as I was cutting back a rouge sapling that was sprouting at the base of the little tree off the deck.  I heard their chirping, but didn’t realize how close I was to them until I saw the mama bird frantically trying to distract me.

It's June... Do these trees look like they've grown together to you???

Seriously...  The landscaper guy told me these little guys would go through a massive growth spurt, and by June, would be completely filled in so I could take down the landscaping fabric I have stapled on the fence.

Yeah right.  I'm NOT paying for these dumb trees.  If he wants them back, he's gonna have to come dig 'em up and fill in the holes.  And furthermore, I'M not going to be the one to initiate the phone call to have this taken care of.  I wrote him a letter and told him I'd wait to see if the trees filled in by June.  Let's just see what kind of customer service the guy has.  Will he step up to the bat and take care of the problem or just pretend he's forgotten about me? (I'm betting on the latter).

And...  the ground finally dried up enough for Brian to dig out the drainage pipes the landscapers damaged when they planted the trees.  They'd knocked the box/diverter thingie off the ends of the pipes so the water was just gushing out at the end of the pipes and not traveling further down the back of the property as it should have been.  I haven't even been able to mow alongside these stupid trees because it was too squishy, and I was afraid I would get the mower stuck in the mud! 

Brian dug out a new 50' trench over the weekend and put in new black pipe to move the water along

The Bat House and the Purple Martin Houses

I got a bat house several weeks ago, and Brian and I got it "planted" a couple of weekends ago. I didn't want to put it in concrete because I'm supposed to move it around until I'm able to attract bats. I have no idea if we put it in a good spot or not???

It survived straight up for about 3 days and then it rained and the ground got so wet, it stood at a diagonal until last weekend.

Don was nice enough to help me dig holes for the bat house and for the two purple martin houses I bought last week. We rooted around in Lowe's until we found chain link fence posts are the perfect size to slip the triangular matin house poles and the round bat house pole into. We (Don) cut the posts to 24" then we (Don) dug holes deeper than that to bury the posts into. Then we (Don) poured dry concrete around that. That way, the posts sit below ground so if I have to move any of the houses, I won't have anything sticking above ground to have to mow around.

The martin houses were easier to put together than the poles! Actually one of the poles was missing the snaps so I had to call the manufacturer to have more sent.

The houses are SOOOOOO stinking cute! I got them at Tractor Supply. Here's Iggy Pop posing with them:

And here's one of them in place:

And here's the bat house.  I SO hope I attract some bats.  I think they're adorable (and they eat lots of bugs).