So, one morning, a few weeks back, I walked into my garden and saw this. If you can’t quite tell, it was emerging from some kind of cocoon that looked like it had been buried in the ground. Needless to say, I stifled a scream and slowly backed away, sure that thing was going to attack me.
But then, I went inside to get my camera. Because, yeah, I’m obsessed with taking pictures even when I’m thoroughly freaked out.
When I came back, it had finished birthing itself.
And had left its cocoon thing behind.
I searched and searched the internet but couldn’t find a definitive answer on just what the heck this bug was. That is until I stumbled on the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension page, where they have a form that you can fill out to ask an entomologist to identify an insect for you.
This is the answer I got:
The insect is one of the robber flies, insect family Asilidae. It’s adult coloration is not fully formed, but I think it is one of the “bee killers”: https://bugguide.net/node/view/6695/bgpage. There is some general information here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/6695. Robber flies are predatory on other insects and considered to be beneficial species.”
So, no it wasn’t going to attack me. Despite how freaky that thing was, according to A&M, he’s a good guy. Just a little reminder to get the facts before we go squashing something out of existence, right?
Yesterday while I was working at my desk, which incidentally looks out onto my front garden and our neighbor’s yard across the street, I saw a roadrunner eating a giant grasshopper of some kind. As per usual, I snatched up my camera, but in my excitement, I didn’t put my glasses on, and my shots came out blurry. And then, of course, the bird had disappeared.
Disappointed but a bit hopeful he might still be around, I decided to go outside and have a look. Sure enough, he was hanging out in my other neighbor’s yard.
I don’t know much about roadrunners, but their name implies that they probably hang out mostly on the ground. So, I was surprised when this guy flew up into our neighbor’s oak tree.
But the squawks and shrieks from the jays and mockingbirds made me worry that perhaps this guy was after some fresh eggs. If you look to the right of the roadrunner’s head in the picture below, you can see a mockingbird. She doesn’t look happy.
I never did spot a nest, so I guess the other birds were feeling territorial. And, I mean, the roadrunner does look intimidating. Just look at that beak!
After a bit, the jay and the mockingbird flew off to do other things. Maybe that was because the roadrunner didn’t seem to be all that interested in doing anything but sitting in the oak’s dappled shade. Or maybe it was because given how loudly the cicadas were screaming in the afternoon heat, this guy had plenty of snacks available to him.
I left him alone after a while and hopped on the computer for some ID details. If you’ve never used The Cornell Lab’s Merlin bird identifier, definitely give it a go the next time you want to ID a bird. It’s super cool! Anyway, according to Merlin, a greater roadrunner sighting in Kyle, Texas, is “uncommon.”
Here are some basic facts about the bird from the Cornell site:
A bird born to run, the Greater Roadrunner can outrace a human, kill a rattlesnake, and thrive in the harsh landscapes of the Desert Southwest. Roadrunners reach two feet from sturdy bill to white tail tip, with a bushy blue-black crest and mottled plumage that blends well with dusty shrubs. As they run, they hold their lean frames nearly parallel to the ground and rudder with their long tails. They have recently extended their range eastward into Missouri and Louisiana.”
I especially appreciate this bit of info:
“Greater Roadrunners eat poisonous prey, including venomous lizards and scorpions, with no ill effect, although they’re careful to swallow horned lizards head-first with the horns pointed away from vital organs. Roadrunners can also kill and eat rattlesnakes, often in tandem with another roadrunner: as one distracts the snake by jumping and flapping, the other sneaks up and pins its head, then bashes the snake against a rock. If it’s is too long to swallow all at once, a roadrunner will walk around with a length of snake still protruding from its bill, swallowing it a little at a time as the snake digests.”
So, it was a pretty cool sighting. And if you know anything about me by now, you know I love it when a bird I’ve never seen in or near my habitat shows up. It just feels special.
Did I mention that I’ve had the song from the Roadrunner cartoon in my head ever since?
The squirrels in our yard are weird and hilarious. Most people think of them as nuisances because yes, they eat the birdseed, and yes, they tease the dog. I’ve heard they can damage trees and probably a lot of other things that I don’t know about. But you know what else? They are freaking entertaining! I mean, just look at this guy. All those acrobatics are totally unnecessary. It’s almost as if he’s having…fun.
I’m trying to cultivate a tolerance for everything in my garden. I’m convinced there is a way to live with all creatures, even insects–cue the heebie jeebies. Because once you start trying to eradicate one critter, especially in the case of bugs, you often end up with more problems than you started with. One thing might be gone, but a new one will come in to fill the void. Nature is an intricate web, and I am trying to learn how to preserve those delicate strands–emphasis on the word trying. We humans don’t have to control everything, don’t have to beat nature into submission all the time.
Forgive me. I have a tendency to be a little idealistic at times. It’s not just about letting it all go, maybe it’s about tolerating more wildness, more of nature’s perfect imperfection. Perfect because nature knows what she’s doing. Imperfect because that’s how humans often see it.
It reminds me of Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi”:
Hey, farmer, farmer Put away the DDT now Give me spots on my apples But leave me the birds and the bees...
I think we need to learn to live with a few spots, especially if the pay-off is the birds and the bees. In a healthy garden and habitat, things don’t get out of control as often. It’s a balance. You know how homegrown tomatoes rarely look as perfect as those store-bought ones? They don’t always look as good, but they taste a heck of a lot better. I like that side of the scale much better.
Still, letting nature totally have her way doesn’t always work. When I started putting out bird feeders, we had a terrible problem with rats. At first, I thought it was kind of cute to see the little guys (I’m hopeless, I know, but I had a pet rat as a kid, so cut me some slack). But then they started getting into my husband’s work truck and chewing hoses and wires. So some of the rats had to go bye-bye. But what really made the difference was when I switched to waste-less birdseed and started bringing the feeders in at night. We haven’t had any issues since (fingers crossed).
I guess the point in all this rambling is that I think we all need a little more wildness in our lives. Maybe then we can stop defaulting to black and white thinking. This or that. Yes or no. Perhaps we can ease into shades of gray. Or shades of green, as it were.
So, yeah, the squirrels can stay. Besides, if I kept all of them out of my yard, I’d miss out on their circus acts every day. And they definitely make me smile.
I’ll leave you with this guy, who built an obstacle course for squirrels in his backyard. He totally gets it.
Oh happy day! I’ve spotted a new bird here at the Paddington Drive wildlife habitat! Seriously, nothing is quite as exciting as seeing a new bird species.
This ladder-backed woodpecker showed up on my sage bush. He didn’t seem interested in the bird feeder right in front of him, but was instead content with picking small worms off the shrub. Apparently, it’s worm/caterpillar season because I’ve had a terrible time with them eating my watermelon plants, and our backyard mountain laurel is infested with tent worms. I’m reluctant to use BT anywhere but my vegetable garden since I have butterfly plants in the front, so this guy was doing me a favor. Thanks, little bird!
Here’s a brief species account from The Cornell Labs All About Birds page:
When traveling through the scattered cactus and mesquite of the arid southwestern U.S., it’s difficult to believe that these almost treeless habitats are home to woodpeckers. But the Ladder-backed (once known as the “Cactus Woodpecker”) is an attractive dweller of deserts, desert scrub, and thorn forests. It can also be found in pinyon pine and pinyon-juniper forest. Like many small dwellers of arid habitats, Ladder-backed Woodpeckers can be inconspicuous and quiet, requiring a bit of time and patience to find. Their small size and agility make them deft foragers among the thorns and spines of plants like cholla, mesquite, and prickly pear.
Ladder-backed Woodpeckers may come for mealworms offered at feeding stations; they have also been observed eating peanut butter and black oil sunflower seeds. In the northern parts of the range, suet feeders sometimes attract them. To attract a nesting pair, try growing native vegetation and leave dead trees standing when possible; this species does not typically use nest boxes.”
In early spring, when the first wave of flowers was only just beginning to bloom, the hummingbirds and the bees were locked in a battle for nectar. I suppose without an abundance of flowers yet, both desperately needed sustenance. Still, it was a bit disheartening to see, at times, the feeders swarmed by bees–so much so that it often became precarious to get anywhere near them. The above story was a rare moment of cooperation.
I know the bees need our help since their decline is on the rise. But leaving things the way they were meant that sometimes the bees completely crowded out the hummers. So, I did what I always do when faced with a problem I don’t know how to solve: I consulted the interwebs.
As I suspected, because it was early spring and not much was in bloom yet, compounded by sometimes chilly mornings, the bees were just plain hungry. Someone suggested putting out a 1:1 sugar-water mixture, which differs from the 1:4 blend that the hummingbirds get. I didn’t want to use any of my hummingbird feeders since the birds might be attracted to it as well, so I settled on using a jar with small holes punched in the lid. I then turned the filled jar upside down and propped it up on two bricks. It looked kind of like this from the website Better Bee (except in this picture they’ve used wood props):
I placed it not too far away from the hummer feeders, but far enough that no one would have a run-in with the bees. Because let me tell you, those guys swarmed to their new feeder, sucking down an entire jar in a day!
Since the bee nectar was much more concentrated than the hummingbird elixir, the bees largely stayed away from the bird feeders. I continued feeding the bees until spring finally sprung all the way, and there were plenty of flowers for everyone. We haven’t had an issue with them since.
Now, I just have to figure out how to keep the ants out of the feeders…
Sometime in early May, we started hearing the throaty call of a toad in the evenings. It made such a racket that we could hear it over the television. Knowing it was likely in our fish pond, my son and I went out one night to have a look.
No wonder it’d been so loud.
Each night for about a week, they were there, having their own little pool party.
In early June, I spotted a toad emerging from the pond one morning. “Must have been a long night,” I said to it.
It gave me a side-eye and continued on with its walk of shame.
But a few days later, I realized what she’d (I now knew it had to be a she) been doing.
It seemed like a lot of eggs, but I thought there was no way they’d all survive–not with all the fat goldfish in our pond.
I was wrong.
Because soon enough, the pond was teeming with tiny, wriggly tadpoles. “What are we going to do with all these toads?” my husband asked.
“There’s no way they’ll all make it,” I said. “The birds will eat some of them.”
Wrong again. Every morning, I see them in their varying stages of transformation.
Until they hop out of the water, so tiny I sometimes mistake them for a bug.
I can’t help but think of evolution, when a prehistoric fish sprouted legs and crawled out of the primordial waters for the first time. It’s so primal.
It’s easy to forget about the wonder of nature. But part of the joy of having a certified Wildlife Habitat for a yard is seeing things like this. It is connecting with the life that is all around us–if we stop to look.
"Such Singing From Wild Branches"
by Mary Oliver
It was spring
and I finally heard him
among the first leaves––
then I saw him clutching the limb
in an island of shade
with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still
and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness––
and that's when it happened,
when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree––
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,
and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward
like rain, rising,
and in fact it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing––
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed
not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds in the perfect blue sky–––all of them
were singing.
And, of course, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn't last
For more than a few moments.
It's one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,
is that, once you've been there,
you're there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?
Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then––open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.
My favorite time of day is early morning, just after the sun rises. When I walk outside, coffee in hand, the sun is still waking, and the air is blissfully cool. But it is the sound of birdsong that truly gets me. The birds’ chorus then seems different than at other times of the day, as if they reserve the most melodic songs for heralding in the morning. They perch on tree branches, and I spot their various hues: red, gray, blue, tan. Sometimes, a flash of vibrant yellow or orange. The singers are mostly hidden by spring leaves, wings momentarily stilled. They are steadfast in their task.
There’s something about this new day’s concerto that makes me glad that I’ve gotten out of bed. It makes me happy to be alive, and I sing too. Not literally, of course, but the music zings through my bloodstream and thrums in my bones. Those few minutes each morning can power me through the day.
It’s like Mary Oliver said, it’s one of those magical places, and once you’ve been there, you’re there forever. So, quick now, go outside. Be still. Look up. Listen.
And most importantly, sing.
Check out my very amateur video recording of morning birdsong. Isn’t it lovely?
