a document of days

In Savannah, I dealt with flying roaches; New Orleans, stinging caterpillars (my fingers swelled like hot dogs when I was stung); but since moving to D.C. my experience with bugs has been, thankfully, limited.

Until we moved into a house.

Except for the first dreadful apartment that we lived in for the first six months (which I oddly have no pictures of), each of our D.C. apartments was perfectly sealed from potential visitors. Our house is no different. But step outside, and it is like a visit to a zoo.

Ok, I'm exaggerating.

The truth is, we have seen ant colonies that rival the population of New York City; june bugs, beetles, spiders, moths, millions of crickets, a praying mantis (see my photo below) and even a writhing mound of maggots. But the two insects that shocked us (one for it's size and the other for it's size and unsightliness) were the wasps (huge) and the clearwing hummingbird moth (horrible.)




I managed a photo of the first giant wasp we killed (with my new DSLR!) and the photo of the clearwing hummingbird moth is ripped from the internet.

Unfortunately you don't get an idea of size in the wasp photo. But believe me, these things are huge! When straightened out, they are about two inches long.


The clearwing hummingbird moth is one of the most repulsive bugs I've ever seen. It looks like a moth, a bee, and a lobster.