Hey again. I’ve got some more deep thinking coming up, but first I have to say it’s hard to get anything at all done this time of year, because there’s always something interesting and deceased laying around.
Our first thing isn’t dead, just empty. That’s the tiny nest the baby finch tried to fall out of yesterday. It’s so small and exposed! But birds successfully fledged.

Awkward photo of awkward bird nest
The next best is bigger and more protected.

But at least two fledglings ended up on the porch this morning!

We were so sad to find them this morning. What happened? Maybe they got pushed out before they were ready? I sang them a funeral song in a minor key as I took them somewhere the dogs wouldn’t find them. Nature. Yep.
The morning kept going downhill. There seemed to be an endless supply of interesting but dead things. Here’s a really large one called a hardwood stump borer. Cool proboscis.

And here is a beautiful fiery searcher beetle. Wonder what it was searching for?

This is a really large spider. At first I thought it could be a tarantula. But no. The iNaturalist software says it’s a wolf spider. But it’s very black with no distinctive marks. Maybe someone will ID it for me.

I found another wheel bug, too. They fascinate me. What does that wheel thing do for them?

And my last cool dead thing is a big ole walking stick. I love to watch them. Maybe this one isn’t dead!

Hope you can contain your anticipation for my next dead things around the ranch post! It really puts the “rest” in the Hermits’ Rest.