Late summer – the nightly serenade of the cicadas and the daytime buzzing of cicada-killer wasps. A vocal cricket has taken up residence in the studio, and a new colony of yellow jacket warriors has an underground bunker beneath a struggling grape vine.  I found these nasty defenders – or rather they found me – armed only with a string trimmer with shorts and a T for “body armor”.  As I scurried away from multiple stingers I left a hat, sunglasses, then the trimmer in my wake.  Must have looked like (a large clumsy) Peter Rabbit leaving the McGregar garden.   The tall weeds in this row will have to stand undisturbed till cold weather comes.

A relatively unusual fly found its way to our deck yesterday.  According to Buggide.net (http://bugguide.net/bgimage/recent/28001) this is a Peacock fly, Callopistromyia annulipes,  about 10 mm in length.  It comes from a family of flies known as the “Picture-winged flies” .  Besides displaying its wings in the peacock mode it can rotate and fold them on its back, looking more like a regular fly but far less interesting.

Peacock fly on the deck rail