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Canon Image Challenge | all galleries >> The Dog (and Cat, and Rabbit, and Human, and...) Days of Summer >> Eligible > Home Building
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02-Aug-2026 Paul

Home Building

Some small creature is excavating a new home under my cobble stone border rocks. I put that sweet gum seed pod over the hole to observe what happens, a non funded research project one might say.

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Canon Image Challenge07-Aug-2026 04:49
My Google search for a "Cicada killer" indicates it is a large wasp. My live traps are not for them. And "These are solitary wasps, so each adult goes back to its own specific hole rather than crowding into a shared nest ".
Canon Image Challenge07-Aug-2026 02:37
Cicada killers are scary-looking creatures (although they're a lot quieter than their prey).

½ mile isn't far enough. Of course, all examples of a species look pretty much alike, so you won't know if it's the same one that returned or a substitute.

Dave
Canon Image Challenge07-Aug-2026 01:14
I’m in a Kansas lawn care Facebook group, and someone from Wichita shared a similar photo. He mentioned he saw it being dug up by a cicada killer. I hadn’t thought of a cicada killer, but since the cicadas have been so active lately, it seems likely that’s what’s happening here too. Paul
Canon Image Challenge06-Aug-2026 15:00
Dave - there are plenty of critters about anyway, you just don't see them all. As for my live traps, they are for mice, pack rats, and small ground squirrels. If I have something, I just stick it in the back of my golf cart and drive it about 1/2 mile away where our builder, Robson, maintains a larger area in the desert on his land for storing equipment, broken concrete, etc. I just release them there. There is enough desert that it will just feel like a new home to the pests from my yard. I haven't had to do that for a while, as the hawks and owls have done the work for me.

Jim
Canon Image Challenge06-Aug-2026 10:38
Putting out food is fine as long as you don't mind encouraging critters to feel invited.

Where do you take the animals you catch in your live traps, Jim?

Dave
Canon Image Challenge04-Aug-2026 21:55
Or, you might want to put out some various dry foods in small amts - like peanut butter, seeds, nuts, cheese. Then see what disappears first.
I'd do that if I was going to put out one of my live traps.

Jim