Nature Finds: Birth and Death

 I found these four little mushrooms on a rotting piece of old pallet in the milking paddock.  They look like they're singing a song!  Interestingly, they didn't have gills, they had netted-looking pores.  Of course I'm not sure at all what kind they are -  the LBM type I would guess (little brown mushroom).

This is a mud-dauber wasp nest that fell off of the eves of the barn.  It's so beautifully crafted out of the black dirt in the garden.  On the inside we found old pieces of spiders.  It looked like the wasps were storing them for later!  I didn't know mud dauber wasps did that - but perhaps the nest was being used by the spider-killer wasps?  Of perhaps spiders are just very tasty to wasps.

This is a cicada hatching out of it's larval skin, to become a beautiful winged creature that will sing in the tops of trees - birth and death all in one.