Things Begin to Heat Up

Hello readers,

Are you all ready for this lovely heat wave that's going to hit Illinois? Gotta love the mid to high 90 degree weather.

As I was helping clean up a little bit, I went outside to throw out some old food into the woods, and I noticed some movement on the side of the house near the door. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a wasp trying to pull a large house spider up the side of the house.

The wasp is Anoplius sp. or the Blue-black spider wasps

Nice close-up of the two

It was a bit of a suprise to see something like that on the side of the house. I would expect to see something like that a little farther out away from the house where the wasp could drag it under cover more easily than having to drag it all the way across the deck. A lot of effort has to be expended and the spider may wake back up before the wasp gets it away. Venom is costly to make and the wasp probably can't deal with another costly fight with the spider with the possibility of getting killed.

Once the wasp has found a suitable place to leave the spider, it will lay an egg that will hatch and the grub that comes out will consume the still very alive spider. It's a nasty way for the spider to go and I was tempted to save the spider, but that's the way things go and I wasn't going to let the spider give up a hard earned meal for it's young.

Another part of the day was when my family and I went for a walk by Midway Village around the prairie area. We started the walk by the pond, where my curiosity/fascination with water got the best of me and I went down to the water's edge to see many ripples moving rapidly my way. It was a little freaky until I realized it was just a very large school of fishes (I can say fishes because it was more than one species of fish in the school).

As we walked around the prairie area, there were many different species of birds flying around. Many a goldfinch were flying around with their questioning sounding chirps sounding from all around. Their call always makes me smile. But one call in particular caught my attention because of its complexity and how clear it was. I looked around for it and saw a flash of blue at the top of a tree before it landed briefly on the ground and then took off across the prairie. It was a beautiful species of bluebird. I believe it was an eastern bluebird, but am unsure because I didn't get the greatest view of its breast, so I'm not sure if it had the pretty orange color. If I would have had my camera with me, I would have snapped a quick photo. A very vibrant blue plummage all across its back and wings and extending up onto its head where the color tapered off to a slightly more subdued shade. It was such a lovely sight. I wish it would have stayed so I could have seen and heard more, but off it flew. I hope to be lucky enough to see another sometime soon.

My best guess to what it was, the Eastern Bluebird

All in all a very good day just for the brief time I was outside!

Stay cool everyone,

Bug