Good morning to everyone! It is a mild and humid morning today and it is also cloudy. We are supposed to get a bit more rain today, just showers really. But sometimes those showers can produce a lot of rain for us. We do not exactly need more rain at the moment, we received 1 3/4 inches on Tuesday. That will last a while. But if we get more, then we get more. Oh well. It does hurt the picture taking part of things however.

Speaking of pictures. Yesterday I was out taking pics of the flower flies and wasps that are quite abundant right now. There are a couple of flower flies that I need some better pics in order to identify them correctly. I still need those pics. Those flower flies just do not cooperate sometimes. Anyway, there is also a hornet that comes around looking for lunch.

They are hunters, not gatherers of nectar, they want different food. Such as the flower flies. The hornet was flying around casually, I was hoping it would sit down for a picture, but suddenly it zipped after a flower fly and got it. The fly was not much smaller than the hornet and down to the ground they fell in a big fight. The hornet won. I will spare you the gory details. Then the hornet flew off with its prize lunch.

I wonder what would happen if it attacked one of those big wasps? They are bigger than that hornet, and the hornet is huge. I did get pics of the hornet and fly, after the hornet won. Speaking of wasps, I felt something crawling on my arm yesterday so I naturally looked. It was one of those spider wasps. They have a very painful sting. But they do seem to be quite friendly.

Unfortunately it was on my right arm so I was unable to get a picture of it. Sigh. Like those flower flies. One of the flies I need a good pic of came and landed right on top of my camera, and looked at me. A couple other flower flies landed on me too, one on my hand and one of my arm. Then one of those huge wasps landed on me again.

That is the second time now. I nearly had a heart attack. But all I could do was ignore it. But ignoring a wasp that is 1 1/4 inches (3.2cm) long is not easy. Not for me anyway. It just sat there. I stood still not knowing what to do. But I decided to keep taking pictures. And it went back to the flowers. I then went back inside where I could collapse without hurting myself.

Speaking of bears. There was one on the deck last night. I do not mind if they come at night, except they can be noisy. And it wakes me up. And it wakes up Muffin. And Muffin wants me to stay up. I want to sleep. So I fed her and went back to bed. There is a bit of wind now. Time to get my garbage out to the street. Have a great day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.