So many different types of animals enjoy the hummingbird feeder that I sometimes wonder if the hummingbirds are getting a little put off.
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| This woodpecker goes to the hummingbird feeder, then the suet feeder, then back to the hummingbird feeder. |
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| A bald-faced hornet. Don't fall in! (Other bees have, in fact, fallen in, and they can't get out.) |
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| A hummingbird sticks its tongue out at the camera. It's like when your kids are at that age that they won't smile nicely for a picture. |
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| Nothing quenches a hummingbird's thirst like sugar water that's been out in the sun for days. |
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| This furry creature was spending some time in the same tree as the feeder, and I got some shots of it because it was posing so cutely. |
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| This scary but cool spider lives in the shrubs in the front of the house. I've been watching it for the last several weeks. When it suddenly moved once, I may have screamed a little. |
A Hornet Story
An interesting story about the bald-faced hornet: I was watching this hornet go back and forth to the hummingbird feeder, and after I took a few photos of it, I went online to look up to see what kind of bee/wasp/hornet it was. I discovered that these hornets are pretty gentle and tend not to attack people, like some other hornets do.
The next morning after the picture above was taken, I received an email from my next-door neighbor, informing me that there was a large bees nest in one of my trees, near the sidewalk and street. The light bulb went on in my head: I bet this is the bald-faced hornet's nest. And yes, it was.
Normally I would have just sprayed the heck out of the nest with a can of Raid, but I didn't want to make things worse or cause further problems, or just make them angry, given that dozens of people each day walk within 5 feet of the tree, and there are kids who play nearby. So I called a service who took care of it, and even hauled the nest away when they were done. If it had been more isolated, I probably would have left it alone until the cold weather, but I didn't want someone to get stung.