My experience watching insects can be described as “Oooh, what’s that? What’s it doing? Where did it go?” They are ephemeral delights, some of them as brilliant as a hummingbird. On a recent walk in a local nature preserve where I am normally birdwatching, I decided to slow down and spend some time observing insects. I discovered that it is hard to make much progress. There is so much drama in the insect world. Epic battles play out all around you.
I picked out spots along the trail with dappled light and stopped and scanned the ground. At first, it appears as if nothing is happening, but then I spot the first insect, an ant! And then another. Now a Daddy Longlegs or Harvestman appears on its crazy legs. What a strange and magnificent creature! It looks like it is straight out of a science fiction movie. Now there are three of them. Two come together and have a brief wrestling match before returning to their corners where they sit still on a leaf. A third gray one moves through between two red ones.
Somehow, even though I am watching the Harvestmen, I fail to see that one has caught a tiny fly and is eating it. This attracts the attention of an ant who races over and causes the Daddy Long Legs to jump straight up in the air before ambling away. When I look back at the leaf, I see that the ant is now holding a small fly. I also notice that there is part of a leg next to the ant. Did he bite the leg off of the Harvestman?
Now that my attention span and vision were dialed down to the scale of insects, I was able to repeat this experience over and over. Nearly every time I stopped to look, I saw something remarkable and mysterious. Slowing down and observing part of the web of life connects us, via a thin thread, to our place in the world.
A Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle darted across the path; an iridescent green streak. I followed him into the vegetation only to be distracted by a large grasshopper sitting on a leaf. I moved in closer to watch the grasshopper, and he acted just like a bird. As I got close to him, he shrunk back behind the leaf and shifted his position to prepare to move away from me. iNaturalist suggested that he was a Green-Legged Spur Throat. This brings up another fun thing about insects. It appears that entomologists have a sense of humor when it comes to naming them.
Over the past few days, I have encountered the Fraternal Potter Wasp, Organ-Pipe Mud Dauber Wasp, and the Hump-Backed Beewolf Wasp.
As I made my way down the trail, I noticed a large ant. He was moving in small tight circles, and I could see that he was surrounded by small flies. I bent down and took a closer look. The ant was circling over the remains of a dead snail. Shell fragments were spread out on the soil. The ant appeared to be feeding on something that I could not see. He would periodically chase the flies away and return to the snail. There was a dried insect carcass half buried in the snail remains.
When I got back home, I still had insects on my mind. I walked up to a swamp milkweed plant and was amazed to see a beautiful Great Golden Digger Wasp foraging on the flowers. This benign and gentle wasp is covered in short gold hairs. The one I observed also appeared to have golden pollen dusted over her back. She was brilliant and focused on feeding. She let me get quite close without reacting.
I am a big fan of wasps now that I know some of them routinely patrol the brassicas in my garden and remove caterpillars from the leaves. The native plants in my yard support the wasps, and they, in turn, help support a balance in my garden. The proof is that it is the middle of summer, and I still have pristine kale leaves.
Even after years of photographing them at close range, I still cringe when wasps buzz me, but I have never had one land on me. They seem focused on being a wasp. It is interesting how strong our reaction is to insects like wasps. When I watch Cicada Killers, I keep telling myself the males do not sting, and the females only sting if you provoke them. Yet, as soon as one flies by I flinch. There is something about the intensity of the noise, the frequency of their buzz, and their attitude that seems to trigger a reaction in me. I wonder if this is akin to our visceral reaction to snakes.
If you spend enough time around buzzing insects this fear response will ease up, and you can appreciate them for the small wonders that they are.
A strange passion is moving in my head
My heart has become a bird
Which searches in the sky
Every part of me goes in different directions
Is it really so
That the one I love is everywhere?
Rumi
In extending our love to the tiny ones, including the bees, ants, wasps, and spiders, we are caring for and supporting the little things that run the world.


















Nice. Trade subscriptions?
Nicely done, Bill. Thank you. I'd like to think Rumi would get a kick out of having the circle of love in his love poem broadened even further to include wasps, ants, and harvestmen.