"There Was A Young Man From Lee ....

.... Who got stung on the neck by a wasp,
When asked if it hurt, he said, "No not at all,
It can do it again if it likes." :)

I fancied shooting bugs today but they were few and far between and I ended up concentrating on the wasps visiting the ivy by our back door.

When in flower, ivy has a very pungent smell that is attractive to bees, wasps and flies. The scent has been likened to a wet bed full of bugs, urine, drains, a rubbish dump, rotting flesh and semen.

The wasps today were not interested in the few flowers still in bloom but the young fruits, which I believe have extrafloral nectaries. They glisten with the sweet substance that the insects adore. At this time of year wasps rely on nectar as their main energy source.

My wasp, which is cleaning its foreleg, has that cute doggie style marking on its face rather than the usual anchor mark. I've shot and Blipped one like this before and identified it as a Saxon wasp. Not so sure now.