Alan and I have the privledge to live in close quarters with some creepy (and not so creepy) critters. Perhaps the most appealing housemate is the robin and two chicks that are nesting in our garage. Last week I was lucky enough to witness the chicks first flying lessons. One did quite well and the other sort-of ran into Alan's car...I hope it got away ok.
Our next house guest does a good job of keeping the mosquitoes at bay, but leaves a lot of little messes on my car...can you guess? BATS! The "garage" is more like a car port in that there is no door. The bats like to hang out in the rafters in the evening, but they must have another hiding place during the day.
Our third guest is definitely the one I struggle to enjoy. Many of you know that I am not fond of flying insects so the fact that we have a population of about 20 cicada killers living in our front lawn is not terrific in my book. As the old saying goes "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger", I am slowly desensitizing to these critters and although I will probably never LOVE flying insects, I at least have less anxiety about them. As the pictures below show they look like giant hornets, but they are actually pretty harmless. The males have false stingers and can't hurt you at all. Although the females do have stingers, they are not aggressive and I guess the sting doesn't feel like much. The females dig nests in the sand to lay their eggs, meanwhile the males are cruisin' around looking for a mate. As their name suggests they snack on cicadas which are rather loud insects, but not often seen because they would just rather be in the trees. So although there is nothing to be afraid of, I still scurry in and out of the house waving my arms about and probably giving the neighbors a few good laughs! I must give a big thanks to Alan for being brave and taking photos of our friends, the cicada killers.
