An Hour In The Sun

"To a student of insects high summer is no time for dreaming: it is a time for being afoot and alert. The world of insects is at its shrill crescendo, in a few short weeks to fade to a whisper and then to months of silence." -- Howard Ensign Evans, from Wasp Farm

Now that several populations of Cerceris fumipennis had been located, the wasp work began.

One hour of wasp watching at Greenvale Park from 11:30 to 12:30. Wasps flew continually over the scruff of vegetation covering the ball field. Perhaps some of these flights were orientation flights? Many, however, seemed more searching, perhaps searching for locations to found a new nest? And there were more nests than before. During the hour, I netted just one wasp that was carrying a beetle. As I was leaving, I interrupted a Great Golden Digger Wasp excavating a nest at the edge of the ball diamond. I crouched in the grass near where it circled. My presence bothered it, but eventually the wasp returned to her nest and began digging again. Intermittently she'd stop digging and fly up and inspect once more this new large object present in her space, hovering very near my face and sometimes around the camera I was holding. The bright orange abdomen and legs, the golden hairs on face and thorax, and the inquisitive, knowing vigilance are certainly a few of good reasons to admire this wasp.

A second hour of wasp watching from 1:30 to 2:30 at St Olaf yielded similar results: a single beetle. Most entertaining at this site were several sand wasps, probably Bicyrtes, that raced across the bare surface of the practice field so close to the ground and at such speed that they resembled race cars cruising the salt flats of the Great Basin.

Posted on Ιούλιος 04, 2017 0316 ΠΜ by scottking