In 2016 I’m doing a 365 Nature project. Each day of the year I will post something here about nature. It may be any format, a photo, video, audio, sketch or entry from my nature journal. It could be a written piece. Each day I will connect to nature in some way and share it here by the end of that day. You can keep up-to-date by subscribing to the RSS feed or be notified by email. See all the 365 Nature posts.
There is much happening in our yard today. The Bewick’s Wrens I wrote about yesterday are still busy bringing in nesting materials. I have watched them scavenging for materials all over our yard. When they’re both here sometimes I’ll hear another Bewick’s Wren calling a couple yards down the alley so I’m guessing there’s another territory over there. Today as I watched them bringing materials, both arrived back at the same time and while one was on the perch about to go in, the other landed on its back, also trying to get in. I wish I’d put a nest camera up.
Last night we had dinner outside and as we sat at our table a large insect buzzed all around the edges of the table. I had noticed something going up under one of our chairs earlier in the day and when I flipped it over, one of the screw holes was filled in with mud. I’m guessing it was the same insect looking at the holes under our table, but I’m not sure what it was. It looked like a large fly, all black, but it was large, much larger than a solitary bee. It never slowed down and I didn’t get any photos of it. Today I brought my camera out, but it hasn’t shown up again.
Also on the table I found what I think is an interesting egg sac. It’s attached to a stalk like lacewings make, but the egg casing is larger than I thought lacewings lay. I may try submitting it to BugGuide later.
The wasps are a regular presence in our yard, they flock to our old chairs to scrape the wood off. They’ve been doing that for as long as we’ve lived here and when it’s really quiet, sometimes I can hear them scraping.
I finally caught a glimpse of the woodpecker who has been our regular companion over the last couple of weeks (most recently on Day 94) on the power pole along the street behind our house. It’s hard to see from our house, I can only see it from a couple vantage points, but think it’s a Downy Woodpecker.
