Don't fly!

It was late at night. The household was asleep, except the hamster and I was awake typing. On the floor above me suddenly dad starts stomping around. This is most unusual. "Are you awake?" dad asks, "there is a bat in the house."
Oh boy, what great fun!
Fortunately it flew into the bathroom instead of the living room with clearstory windows. It could dodge with far more skill than a bug! I chased it in circles with a waste basket and towel, but only caught it when it got tired and landed on the towel.
I put it in a makeshift cage (a bug zapper screen) to photograph it. The bat kept opening its mouth to echolocate. It was kinda cute.
Recently I was hiking across some pasture we bought, just to see what was there. It was close to our house but I had never actually walked through it before. While watching chipmunks on some rocks that looked like grave stones I heard a buzzing sound coming from a hole in the ground. Perhaps its a bumble bee I thought, they live in holes like that. So I waited and waited, and this is what came out!


I had never seen a hornet so big. If it flew at me I would have ran screaming across the countryside, but it wasn't disturbed by me photographing it. The hornet instead was digging in the loose debris scooping and pushing a load into its hole. Then it continued to buzz, probably making egg chambers.


It was an inch and a half long I estimate. Not all wasps are carnivorous but this one sure looked like it.