266/366 A sweet necessity

22 Tuesday Sep 2020

Tags

annoying wasps, apples, wasp, wasp eating apple, wasp seeking sweet food

As I sat enjoying the coastal view, sipping my water, eating my apple, this wasp came a’visiting, buzzing annoyingly around the hand holding the apple, seeking sweet food, as they do on the fine days of late summer and early autumn. And, until I read this article on The Conversation website, I had no idea why. Take a look – it’s really interesting and well written. Oh, and my solution? I broke off a small piece of the apple and put it on the bench arm rest, so the wasp could help itself. As you can see, that worked a treat.

200925 wasp

242/366 Bottoms on brambles

29 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects, nature, plants

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

blackberries, brambles, flies, insects on blackberries, insects on bramble, wasp

I don’t know about you but, when I’m out walking at this time of year, I’m often tempted to pluck and devour one of the luscious-looking blackberries growing on the bramble-covered fences and hedgerows.

Well, not any more. Not now I’ve seen how many flies like to suck at them and run their dirty little feet all over them. Just look at all those fly bottoms!

And let’s not even mention the very real possibility of getting stung by a wasp that’s jealously guarding ‘its’ berries. From now on, the berries are all for the beasties!

94/366 Curiosity

03 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British wasps, Common wasp, Vespula vulgaris, wasp

This Common wasp (Vespula vulgaris), which was enjoying the warm sunshine on the front of the house this morning, seemed to be as curious about me as I was about it.

(Yes, the windows are a mess – I live in a flat in a Grade II listed building that’s well over 100 years old, and the windows, most of which still have Victorian glass in them, with all its imperfections, are in need of major repair. It’s a long and ongoing story.)

323/365 Autumn critters

19 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects, nature, plants

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

autumn insects, bees, British insects, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, hoverflies, ivy flowers, moth larva, Red Admiral, wasp

It may be late autumn, with shortening days, chill winds and cooling nights but, when the sun comes out as it did yesterday, the insects also come out to warm themselves and feed. During my walk around Cosmeston I spotted a late Red admiral butterfly and then, further on, where ivy was still flowering, a host of flying mini-beasties: hoverflies, various bees and wasps. And, near them, tucked away further down on a bramble leaf, even a caterpillar, probably a moth larva though I’m not sure which species.

247/365 On the menu

04 Wednesday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, British dragonflies, dragonflies, dragonfly, dragonfly eating wasp, Hawker dragonflies, Southern hawker, wasp

Today’s lunchtime snack for this Southern hawker dragonfly had a sting in the tail: it was a wasp. The dragonfly, though, started its meal from the other end, first devouring the head, then removing the wings, before steadily munching its way down the body.

190904 southern hawker (2)

This was obviously not good news for the wasp but it was good news for me, as this was the first Southern hawker that’s stayed still long enough this year for me to grab some photos.

190904 southern hawker (1)

123/365 A Bramble confection

03 Friday May 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, spring

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, British insects, Dock bug, Eristalis sp, Green shieldbug, harlequin ladybird, hoverfly, insects on bramble, Nursery web spider, Speckled wood, Syrphus sp, wasp

Ingredients: 1 patch of Bramble, lashings of sunshine, a tablespoon of warmth, a dash of Springtime
Method: Stand and stare
Result: Nursery web spider, Dock bug, hoverfly (Syrphus sp.), Speckled wood butterfly, Green shieldbug, bee species, another hoverfly (Eristalis sp.), Harlequin ladybird, and wasp (Vespula sp.).

Death on the windowsill

27 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British insects, dead insects, dead insects on the windowsill, dead slater, dead wasp, dead woodlouse, slater, wasp, woodlouse

I don’t know about you but, except on the very coldest of days, I like to have my windows open, at least for a short time each day, to let some fresh air into the house. Trouble is the little critters seem to sense that it’s warmer indoors than out and, if I don’t notice their presence, they don’t manage to escape with their lives. This morning I found two casualties, a Slater and a Wasp.

181025 dead slater 181025 dead wasp

Encyrtidae, a parasitic wasp

07 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Encyrtidae, insect parasites, parasitic wasp, wasp

Just when I was thinking the wee flying critters had probably all disappeared for winter, up pops this little chap, tootling around on the top of an old fence post that I was checking out for lichen. I’m reliably informed, by experts on a couple of specialist pages on Facebook, that this is a member of the Encyrtidae, one of a large family of over 3700 different parasitic wasps (and that’s just the ones that have so far been identified – there are probably many many more).

180107 Encyrtidae parasitic wasp (1)

Information on the Natural History Museum website states that ‘About half of the species of Encyrtidae are associated with scale-insects … generally as endoparasitoids of immatures or less commonly adults’, which means the wasp’s larvae live inside and eat the larvae, and occasionally the adults, of scale-insects – not a particularly nice way to survive, I have to say. Some of these wasps are also parasitic on the larvae of moths and butterflies – also not nice. Still, the wasp itself is a pretty little thing, and some Encyrtidae species have been used as biological control agents to control insect pests, so the news isn’t all bad.

180107 Encyrtidae parasitic wasp (2)

One of Nature’s whodunnits

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, plants

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

galls, oak galls, observing nature, wasp

I sometimes get asked how I come up with enough ideas to post a blog every single day. This post goes some way to explaining how it works for me. I walk … a lot, and my camera is my constant companion, and I am by nature curious about … well, everything, really … and I’m also quite an observant person. So, for example, I went out for a wander around one of my local parks on Monday afternoon, thinking I would see if there were any fungi about, and also to get some photos of berries for a future blog. In the process of taking those photos, I noticed how many galls there were on this one particular oak tree so also took some photos of those … which then led me to check the neighbouring trees for galls. (If you’re not sure what galls are, there will now be a blog post on them as well!)

160922-whodunnit-1

When I got home and started going through my photos, this particular image really grabbed my attention because, for me, this is such a good example of one of Nature’s whodunnits. I look at this and my brain is immediately flooded with questions: how were these galls made? Why are they that shape? What is the creature that’s dead on the leaf? Is it a wasp? Did it make the galls? What killed it? It looks like it has white strands around it – a spider’s web or some kind of fungus? What created the bare patch where the leaf’s veins are showing? Was it the larvae of the wasp? What created the almost perfectly round hole in the leaf? Was that a leafcutter bee or something else? Was it the wasp? And what is the teeny weeny white thing? The shed skin of a larva perhaps?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions … yet. But, if I find out and if I can get more images related to the story, the result could be a blog or three from just this one photo. And so it goes on …