NATURAL DETROIT

Wasp In The Hole

We saw this huge bug during the late summer and it pretty much freaked out everyone in our family.  My mom saw it first when she was taking out the trash at night.  It was very active and was digging a hole between the slabs in our driveway. She thought it was a mole or a snake digging a hole.  We used a flashlight and watched for a while before figuring out it was a big shiny bug.  Its a called a Cicada Killer Wasp, which makes sense because we see a lot of cicada's in our yard.  Females dig a hole for their nests.  They use their jaws to dig and then push dirt out of the hole backwards. The female will then find a cicada, sting it and then carry it back to the nest.  She will then bury the cicada in a chamber and will lay also lay an egg there before burying the cicada and her egg inside.  The cicada will be used for food by the baby wasps (larvae) when the egg hatches.   

Squabbles

During the summer, rock doves built a scruffy nest outside a window of my father's office in the Cass Corridor.  I finally got to see the babies after they had grown a bit.  Pigeons don't keep a very clean living area, but the baby birds were cute.  Their skin looked dark blue. Baby pigeons are called squabs.