Migrants

While checking to see how my Walking Stick was doing in terms of being eaten by Japanese beetles, I realized the ground just below the tree was a network of holes, much like if you had sprayed it with bullets. The holes are each about a half-inch round, with mounds of dirt right in front of them, much like a critter scooping out the soli would make.
A few minutes more and the wasp population became apparent-dunno know if these guys sting, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and kept a distance away. As it turns out, these are giant Cicada Killers, with flecks of yellow and orange. From what the book says, they disable or kill two Cicadas for each nest-back to back-and lay eggs close to the last one.
While I was watching, one of the wasps brought a small katydid to the nest-these insects move so slow that I couldn't figure out if it was partially paralyzed or just didn't run, but it waited calmly for the wasp to bring it into the nest, where it would be eaten. Coincidence or not, just yesterday, I removed a big Katydid from the van-they really do move slowly-it was seemingly reluctant to leave my side and crawled up my arm before I managed to dislodge it. Last night there was another of these big insects on the screen-they are a little strange looking and moving-fun to watch. I guess that these "hatches" are complimentary-the hunted and the hunter.
But wait, there's more! It must be big insect week-found a two and a half inch Dobsonfly (their larvae are called Hellgrammites) on the back door-beautiful antennae with an overall grey appearance-this camouflage would be perfect except for the fact that this guy sat on the edge of my white screen door.
Although I tried, I couldn't upload images of these insects to this blog, so you'll have to take my word for it:all the aforementioned are big and beautiful critters!