The Lazy Dog Ranch Blog: Abundance of Creatures

So many living things out in the country! I've yet to identify many of the birds we see and hear. I know we have cardinals, blue jays, plenty of bluebirds, and one of my favorites, scissor tail flycatchers. Of course, crows, buzzards, and a few hawks as well. And, I finally heard a woodpecker but never found him.

Many leopard frogs called the yard home until the grass was cut. I'm assuming they moved on to the front pasture, except the two Lillie Mae devoured. Gray and Cope's gray tree frogs galore. Praying mantis, walking sticks, huge daddy long legs, wolf spiders, and the ground is covered with the funnel webs of grass spiders and, one of my favorites, the garden spider. Oh, I can't forget the nasty velvet ant aka cow killer that I promptly killed while mowing a couple of weeks ago. They're actually a wasp. We've seen a lot of dead asps as well... bah!

Garden spiders eat mosquitos, aphids, flies, grasshoppers, and wasps. The large female spins a large orb web while the smaller male will spin a second smaller zig zag web at the bottom of hers. She'll spin an egg sac for her hundreds of eggs that will hatch in the fall. She dies soon after. The babies will spend winter in the sac and leave in the spring. One of their predators is the dirt dauber.
This means I'll continue destroying the dauber nests all around the house! There were a dozen or so garden spiders on the front porch alone the first time we looked at the property. Somebody cleaned them up and I was happy to see I've got one that's still here. Sadly not for much longer, as she just spun her second egg sac...