wasp on southern night sky

paul · Post by **paul** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:56 pm

The wasps are getting desperate, with winter approaching. This one found the window of my study at 10pm and sat down to preen. Never in one place, sometimes moving furiously, wings buzzing, sometimes just turning on the spot, enough to make tight framing a nightmare.

The night sky tells me that it is time again to clean the windows. The specs are accentuated a bit by USM.

Dynax 7D @ ISO 800
100mm macro
F32, 1/60
flash (I use an old 2nd hand Minolta ring flash)

MikeBinOKlahoma · Post by **MikeBinOKlahoma** » Thu May 05, 2005 3:03 pm

Paul, this is a very neat shot! Good job. The colors, the subject are awesome....

nzmacro · Post by **nzmacro** » Fri May 06, 2005 1:32 am

the under carriage for sure Paul. Plenty of stars up there in AKLD I see M8t.......or is that snow

.

Love the colours and the unique details Paul.

Danny.

Garry DeLong · Post by **Garry DeLong** » Fri May 06, 2005 6:12 pm

This appears to be very close to the species that we in the NW USA refer to as a "yellow jacket" (Vespula sp.) http://www.velocity.net/~aeridia/vespula_germanica.html
Adjusting for where you are, in New Zealand, this would be about the time this animal becomes very irritable and aggressive. In this part of the world, the same happens in October.
Garry DeLong

paul · Post by **paul** » Fri May 06, 2005 10:34 pm

Garry, you are right, this is the German wasp. So far I have not experienced their fury yet, but there are an awful lot of them in the trees around my house, collecting honeydew secreted by scale insects.

Thanks for warning me.

Paul

S. Alden · Post by **S. Alden** » Sat May 07, 2005 5:07 am

Sure does look like the "yellow-jacket" and they can be mean. Nice image and nice to see the "other" side of this guy.

arvindr · Post by **arvindr** » Sat May 07, 2005 9:01 pm

This combination is really cool - the 'sky' and the belly of this wasp - or Yellow Jacket as Sue says.

I love the colours and details.

JakobG · Post by **JakobG** » Sun May 08, 2005 4:26 pm

Very novel perspective, very neat!

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun May 08, 2005 5:59 pm

Yeeep! That'sa Yeller Jacket fer shure there Paul. Don't hurt real bad when they sting ya but they sure itch like h..ll after they do. I mowed a bunch of em' last fall, gave em' that lawn mower!