I was just now sitting on my patio scrolling my news feed (meaning, phone/camera in hand!) when this ran right by my feet, off into dirt, over a small retaining wall and into rocks. Incredibly fast, but I caught some video and stills with no help from my cat, whom I kept having to push away.
I've enlarged these shots, so they're quite grainy. Look carefully and you can see the wasp is dragging a cricket. It could be Chalybion californicum, the blue mud dauber, although sources say they catch spiders and especially black widows, and this gal had a cricket, so I'm not sure, but she was a brilliant iridescent blue. If anyone knows for sure, let me know!
Like others of their kind, they inject their prey with paralyzing venom and drag them to their burrows to feed their young. I've seen this particular one before, often hovering over flowering vines, but never dragging prey. What a treat!
