Birds of prey and snake today

Hubby arrived home from dispatching Meals on Wheels. He said he thought I'd like to go look at the mailbox, I'd probably be interested.
You'll like my jury-rigged mailbox attachment – March, 2016. It was the best I could do at the time.
I inspected the box interior. It turns out, there were two spider cocoons, full of little babies. What hubby spotted were the ants dragging away the spider babies. Cycle of Life. Sigh.

Mailbox news from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

In the morning, I'd taken a walk down to the meadow. There was nothing on the trailcams, but quite the fooferaw, on behalf of the robins. Something was irritating them. It wasn't until after lunch that I figured it out. The tree canopy provides both protection and cover for predator and prey.

  

I sat down to lunch looked out the back door, and spotted our regular hawk. I last spotted it Tuesday, July 19th, right there on the post beside the driveway. I drove up beside it, and it was quite bold.
You'll see in the video that the brave little robins were dive bombing it, trying to encourage it to leave the territory!



After lunch, Daisy and I went walking in the FRONT yard. An Osprey! Seriously! They eat fish and eels. Apparently, they are now hunting snakes. It's partner flew right over my head with a snake, straight as an arrow toward the nest, while this one just sat. It was eyeing Daisy, but didn't seem too interested. Thankfully. The nest is about 2.5 km away. This one took off west toward the lake.




Cedar waxwing, it was in the tree beside the Osprey. Thankfully, the osprey doesn't go for fur or feathers.

Daisy and I went into the back yard. There, on a little violet leaf, a redbelly snake. The photo is an archived one, I didn't touch the snake, as it was quite happy in the violets, curled up into a ball.


Northern redbelly snake from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Hawk from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

How many critters can one plant hold?

This is the plant!
Common Mullein

Buster relaxes after showing me the bugs!

I took the day off yesterday. I didn't shovel any topsoil. I did a series of small chores, that no one but me would notice.
Hubby went to the ball game, for some relaxation. I relaxed by puttering, and got brown paint under my fingernails.
Buster was sitting on the edge of the septic bed.
It scared me, as I heard rustling and didn't know what was there.

Felix preferred stealth mode!

But as serendipity goes, my boys often lead me to new sights and sounds.

First was the large spider with the stripe down its back. Research is an interesting thing in this day and age. Any fool can name something, and any fool can believe him! I have many resources I go to to identify my mystery birds. Wiki sources are not reliable, I prefer to go to the university sites, which reputable authors.
There are many hits for this topic of 'spider with stripe down its back'. I first checked my insect book, then realized that they are not 'insects', as they have 8 legs. SIGH. Arachnids.



What further amazed me is that there were two, of the same size and same species on the same plant. Apparently boy scout spiders; sharing, sharing, sharing.

Ants, of course!

Could have been 50 of these Stink Bugs!

Ants eating caterpillar turd?

Can you see the spider at the bottom right?

I went out to the front yard, and began to photograph my white irises, with Bleeding Hearts nestled in and around them. I found another spider I had to look up. 

She was fascinating. With PINK stripes! I went back later and found her munching happily on a Flower Fly (Syrphidae), which is a Yellowjacket mimic. The larva eats aphids. The adults pollinate flowers.
This one isn't going to pollinate anything anymore. It's a dog eat dog world.

Stilt bugs (Neides muticus)

Then there was this, I think, pair. Sigh. I think they were happy. "Hugging" as we told our 4-year-old granddaughter one time, spotting a miniature horse mounting his friend!
There were insects everywhere!

Can you spot the wee red spider?

Wild Aster and friend

 

This macrophotography is harder than it looks!

Stink Bug

Its belly bright green.

What a cooperative dragonfly