Tuesday, September 2, 2008

My, it's quiet around here























On the blog, I mean, not here in Tennessee. It's actually pretty noisy here with the sound of cicadas. This is the time of year when the birds love to feast on them. In addition to their usual non-stop song, you'll often hear the cackling protest of a cicada as it's carried away to its death.

The other sound around my house is the eerie buzz of the blue dirt daubers as they build their mud nests around our windows. I welcome the noise--it's strangely musical, and it means more of the venomous spiders that plague us will be wasp food.

I've been somewhat out of commission for a few days, hence the scarcity of posts. My time on the trail has mostly consisted of leaning up against trees, trying to summon the energy to get back to my car. I'll rally shortly, I'm sure. Autumn is almost here, and there's no better time to be out in the woods.

Photo by Nickaleck from Wikimedia Commons.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are blue dirt daubers the same as the black ones we have? And do they really eat spiders? I agree that the buzzsaw sound of the daubers' nests is a wonderful thing.

BitterGrace said...

Yep--black, blue, blue-black, whatever, they're the same, but distinct from the yellow & black one, which is a different species. They all eat spiders, and blue dirt daubers supposedly are especially fond of black widows and brown recluses. Or maybe they just like a chic color scheme in their nests ;-)