MUD DAUBERS AT WORK
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I noticed these Mud Dauber wasps landing on a dirt pile in our yard over and over last Saturday. With the naked eye I couldn't see what they were doing, but zooming in with the camera I could see they were rolling up mud balls and flying off with them to build their nest(s). They flew out of our yard so I don't know where the nest was or if there was more than one nest -- they seemed to get territorial with each other over "their" part of the dirt pile. They roll the mud balls really quickly. All the clips are either at normal speed or slowed down to 1/4 normal speed. It should be pretty obvious which ones are in slow motion. My favorite part is at 1:01 when a Mud Dauber struggling with the weight of the mud ball loses his balance and does a "face plant" into the dirt pile. It's nice to know humans aren't the only animals that do embarrassing things. Mud Daubers are said to be non-aggressive, but they will sting if provoked. This is the first video I've uploaded at 640x480 -- twice the size of the other videos on this site. Hopefully download times won't be too long, but we'll see. Let me know what you think about this size.