Suburban Beasts: Hummingbird Feeder Edition w.s.g Spider

So many different types of animals enjoy the hummingbird feeder that I sometimes wonder if the hummingbirds are getting a little put off. 

This woodpecker goes to the hummingbird feeder, then the suet feeder, then back to the hummingbird feeder.

A bald-faced hornet. Don't fall in! (Other bees have, in fact, fallen in, and they can't get out.)

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. 

Nothing quenches a hummingbird's thirst like
sugar water that's been out in the sun for days.

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. 

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.