Coquette to the Rescue

 

Coquette "Coqui" B., the Bichon Frise who allows me to share her townhouse, is now officially worthy of the moniker humanitarian...or is it animalitarian (yes, it IS a word -- look it up?)

Since I'm not (yet) bothered by the spring pollen in Atlanta, my patio door stayed open all day yesterday.  I have been consistently fascinated by the behavior of Xylocopa virginica, commonly known as the carpenter bee.    During the day they hover and buzz outside the patio door, but they never enter the room.  It's as if they can see a boundary, unlike most other flying insects.

Last night around the time American Idol came on, a male carpenter bee came careening through the door, scaring the life out of me.  Coqui, on the other hand, behaved as if the bee had rung the doorbell -- tail awagging, ears pulled back, spinning in circles.  Her natural instinct is to leap into the air and attempt to grab the bee in her mouth.  Thankfully, it is usually a male  that hovers around the nest, and our doorway, while the female is out gathering nectar.  The male is not capable of biting or stinging, thank Mother.

The bee found a haven in the big Tiffany-style lamp by the fireplace. In that confined space, his buzz sounded a lot like a pair of hair clippers on crack.  Round and round and round.  Rest.  Round and round and round. Rest.

Coqui was beside herself.  She stood beneath that lamp for 30 minutes, waiting for her new friend to rejoin us in the living room.   I was far more interested in getting that thing out of my house.  The bee won, though.  Coqui and I went up to bed while the bee continued to literally knock itself out in the lampshade.

This morning when we came downstairs, Coqui made a beeline (sorry) for the lamp.  Hearing no sounds, she began to look around for signs of the twilight intruder.  I busied myself with cooking breakfast, filling water and food bowls, taking my daily medicine and such.  After a while I realized Coqui was not in her usual spot on the couch.  After a quick look around, this is what I found:

I should have used the video button on my camera.  I never seem to remember it's there until the photo op is over with.  The bee was gasping, weak and dying.  Coqui kept a version of this posture for about 20 minutes.  She circled the chair above and pawed the floor, trying to get the bee to move.  At first, her efforts were met with a brief fluttering of wings and a comparatively weak serenade of buzzes.  But about 10 minutes into it, the bee was spent.  Not dead yet, but on life support.  I scooped him up and put him outside to complete his natural cycle of life.

This dog of mine is pretty cool.  A year or two ago I posted about a similar episode involving a baby squirrel who had apparently fallen from its nest in the towering oak above the spot we found it.  She watched over that tiny animal until it hid itself under a bush.  The next morning, Coqui ran to the spot she last saw "Squiggy" and found his lifeless corpse.  The evil cat owned by a neighbor must have toyed the poor thing to death.  I swear that dog went into mourning.

Who says a dog has no feelings?