Wonderful wildlife

Self-taught amateur entomologist Sabina George has been snapping super pictures of the creatures you may or may not have noticed in residence on your plots. A keen insect photographer who spends winter recording finds on iRecord (a database for UK Flora & Fauna), Sabina is always looking for new sites to explore and KATA was only too willing to take up her offer of having a looksie at what goes on around us on a sometimes very small scale…

latest sightings

July was a good month for solitary and parasitic wasps at Odibourne
Allotments, most feeding at Echinops, one of their preferred nectar
sources. I was excited to find a beautiful parasitic cuckoo wasp in the
Chrysididae family. The luminous green and red Hedychrum species was
slowly feeding at Echinops. Their hosts are solitary Cerceris wasps such
as Cerceris rybyenis in the 2nd photo. Cerceris wasps nest in compacted
soil and prey on small and medium sized bees. Also solitary,
Ancistrocerus species of Potter or Mason Wasps, use bramble, elder stems
or holes in woods for nests and feed on the larvae of micro moths.
Ectemnius wasps may nest in the same area but as each female provisions
her nest considered solitary wasps. They use decaying wood and usually
prey on adult hoverflies. The final wasp on the collage, the European
Beewolf, first appeared in the southern UK in 1990. One of our biggest
solitary wasps, with striking markings, it nests in sandy soil and preys
on honey bees (Apis mellifera). Sabina George

All words courtesy of Sabina George. Thank you for regularly visiting our sites, Sabina, and keeping us up to date on your findings about this vital group of organisms.