These Buzzers don't Bite

I still have a few dandelions in my garden, which now the buddleia has gone over from purple to brown is providing some welcome nourishment for various hoverflies and bees passing through as they try and live as long as they can.

I remember when every flying thing with stripes was a creature to be feared, a monster to be cringed at while trying not to flap like your mother tells you to; something I struggle with even now if a persistent wasp is too close, something that happens more and more as the season wears on and rotting fruit gets them drunk.

I now know better. Most stripey flying things are beautiful, friendly pollinators that we really can't do without if we are to live on our planet. Even wasps, as long as they are good and stay a long way away. But the news of asian hornets now being found in this country reminds me of an insect I'd be very wary of ever meeting again.

Eurasian hornets, as I understand it, are not as aggressive as wasps can be, and indeed, I've looked at them quite closely without thinking it was going to suddenly fly into my face sting at the ready.

But as a child on Crete, I met the local hornets of a rather different nature. Their bodies were dark rusting red, with a broad yellow band on the abdomen near a sting the size of a javelin, and they were about the size of my child sized middle finger. And whenever you were having a drink of lemonade on the beach, or using the showers to get the Meditteranean salt off, these beastly insects would fly around you in a cloud, terrifying you into a sort of convulsed paralysis.

The locals would trap them in nearly empty 7-Up bottles, which could fill up in the course of a day with their vicious looking bodies.

I never got stung, heaven only knows how it seems now. But my strong desire to go back to the Aegean is slightly tempered by the memory of these creatures.

These are apparently oriental hornets, and their sting is indeed a hellish one.

Let's look at something nicer instead!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.09.16

Hornets Attack Victor Mature!

Photography has been a frustrating habit this week. Nothing has stayed in range of my camera for very long, and the shots I'm getting have been pretty low quality. The birds are hiding in the canopy, the bees are too mobile, and the butterflies seem to have disappeared.

Today has been a case in point. I'm keen to photograph swifts, but when I go out to find them they are high level rather than screeching at low altitude as they fly into their nests, and a big flock of long tailed tits in the Old Oak Wood today, but I couldn't get any kind of clear view among the leaves.

Early and tree bumblebee workers are now out and about, saddlebags full of pollen, but they ended up being just as hard to photograph as the fast moving hairy foots that have now sadly disappeared for the year by the looks of things.

And the most gutting thing? Walking through the orchard in the park, and thinking "Gosh, that was a bloody big wasp" that's just flown by. Walking a bit further, a flash of red and yellow whipped over my right shoulder and settled on a tree trunk.

It was a hornet, large as my index finger, and the first I've ever seen in Newark. When it flew, its wings made a loud, low "thrum" and it was obviously chewing wood for nest purposes. Magnficent beast! But of course, as soon as I deployed my camera, it flew up and around the tree trunk.

"Git!" I said, as I did to every other bird or insect that refused to pose for me. I was left to take photographs of the many coloured wallflowers in the fort shaped flowerbed by the cafe. Even the bees there were elusive, not to mention the fantastically fast winged silver y moth that also made a rapid visit.

Still, colours though!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 27.05.16. "Hornets Attack Victor Mature" was a name that REM used for a secret show once upon a time.