One of our volunteers, Eric, discovered some wasps the other day. He was vigorously scything away the undergrowth near post 10 at Filnore Woods when he must have sliced the entrance to their nest, concealed in a hole in the ground.
The first the rest of the volunteer group knew of it was when Eric came rapidly up the path waving his arms and slapping himself to stop them stinging. He got about seven stings but said it wasn't that bad.
The thing about wasps is that they are really not very aggressive,
not nearly as bad as honey bees. But of course they will react if their nest is attacked.
Today Alan went back to the nest and took these photos right up close.
The wasps buzzed around him but didn't attack.
In fact the little character on the right in the picture below seems even to be smiling.
This is a good picture for identification because it shows the black anchor shape on the face between her two eyes. This shows she is a common wasp (Vespula vulgaris) not one of the five or more other social wasp species in Britain.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I just love getting comments so go ahead.