Who Has Been Digging Up the Wasps' Nests?

Something there is that does not like a yellowjacket -- 
but loves to tear up the nests and eat fat larvae. 

* * *  

This was a rough autumn in Wasp World. The tenant in our rental cabin, about 150 yards from the main house, reported being attacked by yellowjackets when stepping out on the back stoop. And he is sensitive to them, although not full anaphylactic-shock-death-sensitive.

The wasps got me too when I went over there.  They were coming out of a warp in the cedar siding. Time for action! There I went, gloved and jacketed, wearing a loose head-net over a plastic hard hat, climbing a ladder with wasp spray in hand.

After chemical warfare came expanding foam and calking compound. Eventually the buzzing stopped. 

Wasp traps lure with scent

But there were still some around, so we hung conical wasp traps (they fly in but can't fly out) front and rear. The number of yellowjackets in the air was considerably reduced, although not totally down to zero.

At the main house, we had paper wasps in the greenhouse, but they are not nearly as aggressive as yellowjackets , though they will sting -- particularly dogs, for some reason. I found their nest and dropped it in a bucket of water. They'll be back though, I'm sure

Someone else was hunting wasps too. I found the scene at the top about fifty yards from the cabin. Something had torn into an underground yellowjacket nest, torn out the chambers with tasty larvae in them, and departed. 

Then M. went walking and found another similar pillaged nest a quarter mile up the county road, as shown below. My first thought was "bear," but the damage was rather . . . dainty compared to what bears do. So maybe a skunk? They are always around. 

If you want to see how a bear approaches yellow jacket nests, watch this video from the Wilson Forest Lands YouTube channel

 

Now that's bear style!

For more on bees and wasps -- but mostly bees -- in Colorado, listen to this episode of the Colorado Outdoors podcast, "Pollinate Your Mind: Colorado's Native Bees."  

Cruising El Cuartelejo

 
I'm using the broad definition, not the Kansas-centric one.

And it's the Colorado Otero County, not the New Mexican Otero. But both counties are named for the same man, Miguel Antonio Otero (1829–1882). Now you know.

Endless sky.

Big Cat News from Northern and Southern Colorado

A couple of days ago, I checked the trail camera nearest the house, located about 80 yards up  the ridge in back. With apologies for the infrared flash on the ten-year-old camera, this is one photo of a sequence.

Photo taken about 9:30 p.m. on December 13, 2025.

 M. was out for a walk as I was checking the photos on my laptop. "Guess what I got," I said when she same in. "A mountain lion," she answered. "Steve [our neighbor] showed me a video from his camera."

And here it is, five nights after the photo above.

Not the same cat thought. This one is wearing a collar and tracking device. I checked with the district wildlife manager, who said a study was underway in western Pueblo County and adjacent areas involving a number of collared cats.

Then came the report of a woman killed by a lion while hiking on New Year's Day in western Larimer County, as first announced by Colorado Parks & Wildlife that same afternoon. This Colorado Sun report from January 2 has a little more detail, including an attempted attack on the same trail in November 2025:

Gary Messina said he was running along the same trail on a dark November morning when his headlamp caught the gleam of two eyes in the nearby brush. Messina pulled out his phone and snapped a quick photo before a mountain lion rushed him.

Messina said he threw his phone at the animal, kicked dirt and yelled as the lion kept trying to circle behind him. After a couple of harrowing minutes he broke a bat-sized stick off a downed log, hit the lion in the head with it and it ran off, he said.

“I had to fight it off because it was basically trying to maul me,” Messina told The Associated Press. “I was scared for my life and I wasn’t able to escape. I tried backing up and it would try to lunge at me.

Both reports say the last known mountain lion killing of a human happened in 1999. That refers to the death of Jaryd Atadero, 3, in the Poudre River canyon west of Fort Collins.

To me from a couple hundred miles away, his unwitnessed death like a lion attack. Some people, including his father, at least initially, wanted to believe it was an abduction and murder. His parents wrote a book about the experience.