Backyard Drama

It was a warm summer evening, no it was not, and it was hot and muggy. I decided to do some yard work, but that did not happen. As soon as I stepped into the backyard, it started to sprinkle, not much, but enough to make me take pause for a moment. I heard the hummingbirds buzzing around, one hummingbird got within 3 feet of me. Change of plans, grabbing my camera, I was thinking I’m not going to get any yard work done tonight. I spotted movement on the other side of the pool, was it a cricket? I looked thru my 400 mm telephoto lens, no it was some kind of wasp dragging a spider. How cool was that, I lowered my lens about to step to the left and get a better angle; but before I could get my camera up, a spiny lizard ambushed the wasp taking the spider. I don’t know who was more amazed the wasp, or me because he kept going in circles for several minutes looking for the dinner that was lost.

Wow! That was cool and exciting. I was thinking what we need now is a Mississippi kite to fly over the yard. Well, once again before I could even react a Mississippi kite flew directly at me about roof top level. Then, there was another one. As I tracked the second one, which was moving way too fast for me to get a picture, I spotted another Mississippi kite in the top of the tree by the back door. OK, how long had the kite been sitting there?

You guessed it, the rest of evening, I watched and waited for the Mississippi kite to take off and hunt. Which happened many times. There is always tomorrow night for the yard work, but the Mississippi kite may or may not be sitting in my tree.