Pot mud

Identification - Sceliphron sp - mud dauber.

Very cloudy and dark this morning, so I decided to wait it out for better light. The sun finally came out around 13:15, so grabbed my camera and set out. There were heavy clouds looming and a felt a spot of rain, so this was going to be a quick safari. Time being of the essence, I did not grease up with deet or wrap my knees, figuring a quick bush based blip.

Once again, I could not keep my eyes off the ground and pretty soon I spotted this potter wasp mud dauber, in the mud. A slightly different species to all the other wasps in my collection. As I tried to get down to the wasp, it saw me and flew off, so I returned to the bush that I was scanning.

Within seconds, the wasp returned, so I had another go, applying more stealth. The wasp still spotted me and scampered further along the path. I shuffled after it, but again, it flew off. I stood and backed off a few paces and kept watch. Sure enough, the wasp returned within seconds.

This time I stood back and observed. The wasp, as I suspected was collecting mud. It searched around for a suitable patch, then pulled out any unwanted debris and cast it aside. Next the collection, it dug its open jaws into the mud and pulled it back to its front pair of legs, repeating several times until a very neat sphere of mud was manufactured. She then dug in deep with her head and lifted the ball of mud out of the ground. Holding the ball between her jaws and front legs, she flew off.

Experience told me that she would be back in a couple of minutes. This time, I waited until the digging had started before moving in. I have noticed in the past that once a bug is doing something, like eating, they are much easier to approach. Sure enough, this time I was able to get my chin on the ground and collect the shots.

After she flew off, I stayed on the ground and waited. When the wasp returned, she would not settle with me being present, so once again I moved back. I collected images from five visits, figuring I had enough for a blip and my collection.

The wasp was in continuous motion and the first set was all blurred, so I switched to aperture priority and shot the rest of the session at 250th second, accepting the loss of depth of field. These kind of 'doing' shots are all about what is going on, not about razor sharp images, although that would be nice. I hoped to capture something that most people would never likely see.

The blip shows the last part of the routine, the lifting of the completed ball out of the ground. Another good addition to my collection.

Dave