Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Before Blogging

scream and run for the flyswatter when confronted with this:


After blogging, scream "Blogworthy!" and run for the camera and Kenn Kaufman's "Field Guide to Insects."

for nightmares, click on photos to em-biggen

Look at this thing - it's a monster! Doesn't it have "killer" written all over it?

Unfortunately, it does. It is a cicada killer, an insect I just learned about this year from posts like this and this, and it was no threat to me. Now, I feel kind of bad about the following photo.


Oh, I still swatted it. It was a humongous wasp-like thing on my ceiling at 11 o'clock at night. I don't think I could have slept if I left it there. But, I also took its picture, ID'd it, and posted about it on the blog.

That should count for something.

8 comments:

Julie Zickefoose said...

Dude. In another year of blogging you will NAME the cicada killer and follow her on a hunt. You haven't lived until you've seen one chew perfect conical divots out of the thoracic flight muscles of a cicada and haul them off.

NCmountainwoman said...

That is too funny! Amazing, isn't it, how we tend to look at everything in terms of blog-worthy or not. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

Sorry Julie, I'm with Kathi. There's no way I would have slept with that thing on my ceiling. I think it's cool enough that you id'd it post-swat.

Mary said...

Like a wild mad woman, I would have swatted that thing to smithereens. Sorry. At least you had enough respect to acknowledge its existence, after the fact. Tee-hee - I usually drop the dead bodies into the gardenias - sort of like a proper burial.

Susan Gets Native said...

Oh. Look at its poor leg all dismembered and laying off to the side.
A cicada-killer...killer.
Good thing it wasn't a female, Kathi. They are the ones who sting like bad-asses.

I couldn't have slept with it in my house, either.

(and very proud that you had the forethought to get pictures and blog about it)

Kathi said...

Julie: I did give it a name, but this is a family-friendly blog.

Carolyn: My staff keeps saying, "You're not going to blog about THAT are you?" as I shoot photos of weird stuff. Well, yeah - of course I am!

Lynne: Had I been absolutely certain it wouldn't sting me, I would have live-trapped and relocated it. But, at 11 pm, I thought about having to call 9-1-1 and chose to swat it instead.

Mary: You should have seen how many swats it took to take this thing down! One good blow stunned it and knocked it to the floor, three more subdued it enough for photos, but it took a smash before it finally succumbed. {shiver!} That was one tough bug!

Kathi said...

Susan: Thought about you *after* the fact. I'm not usually afraid of bugs, but this one was special. Outdoors = Good. Inside at night = Very Bad.

TR Ryan said...

Swatting is so last year. I've learned a new, great trick for extracting midnight visitors without fear of the fatal miss: dirt devil with the extended application.

Hoover