Pastel mud tubes on limestone wall

Click for greater size and clarity.

“Little lamb, who made thee?” asked William Blake in 1789. In 2012 I’d like to ask what made these narrow tubes on the wall of a limestone overhang in Austin’s Great Hills Park. I saw no builders or residents when I took this picture on July 23, but I’m assuming some species of mud dauber wasp had created this pastel cliff dwelling, now abandoned, like the much larger one at Mesa Verde that I wasn’t reminded of at the time, but that I have been since I put together this post.

UPDATE: In 2014 I finally got to visit Mesa Verde.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman