Meticulous Mom

I spent 10 or 15 minutes watching the Steel Blue Cricket Hunter the other afternoon.  I had seen it several times scurrying around hunting for crickets.  It stings the cricket, paralyzing it, then carries it to a hole or burrow and then lays one egg on top of the still living cricket.  It takes only one day for the egg to hatch and the larva then eats the cricket.  In a previous post I showed the cricket hunter with one of its victims.  I then saw the wasp pick up the cricket and fly away with it.

This past week I saw the cricket hunter evidently after the deed had been accomplished and watched the meticulous mom covering up the hole where she presumably had already laid her egg.  I watched her carry pieces of grass and 'rocks' (actually debris from a newly laid sidewalk) covering up a small hole between the sidewalk and the edging stones.

She worked diligently for many minutes until she was finally satisfied with her work and then flew over toward my butterfly bushes and began another cricket search. 

Here's a video showing another cricket hunter also covering up an 'egg hole'.  Maybe you can see why I was so fascinated watching MY cricket hunter doing the same thing.