Ectemnius Digger Wasp With Hoverfly Prey

e6filmuser

I had been photographing an elusive crab spider in my garden when I happened to glance downwards. There, on a leaf, was a black and yellow wasp.

Did I need another wasp (Vespula) picture? I was about to turn away when I noticed the shape of a dipteran fly underneath the wasp's abdomen. OK, social wasps (Vespula) feed insects to their larvae and I had no image of one carrying the meal, so I set about taking some pictures.

I was using my Printing Nikkor 105mm at 1:1 on the sensor, giving a FOV of 17mm. So I could not get wasp and fly in a single frame. There was not time to fetch an different lens.

As soon as I looked through the viewfinder I knew I had something special. Not only was it a digger wasp but it was carrying a hoverfly. I shot some images of each. Then I needed to show wasp and fly in the same frame.

In desperation, I removed a 55mm section of tube form the extension. This reduced the magnification excessively but there was not time for fine tuning. This put the lens well outside its optimised rang but it should still perform well.

The images here have mainly been cropped to remove excessive featureless background, with minimal effect on the magnification.

Harold

GOLDENORFE

Cool series Harold was the hover dead ? Or just caught
Love the Grumpy comical look on these wasps faces

e6filmuser

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

Cool series Harold was the hover dead ? Or just caught
Love the Grumpy comical look on these wasps faces

The scene was as in the still images. The fly seemed motionless. In one frame, not posted, the rear view, at first glance, looks like the fly's abdomen is a reflection of the wasp's in a shiny surface.

Harold

e6filmuser

I just came in to say I've seen it again, a few minutes ago, on rhubarb leaves, in the first sun of the day.

This one was more active and I didn't get a good shot but the blurred image shows distinct yellow above the mouth and a very definite yellow stripe close to the posterior end of the thorax. the legs are more entirely yellow and the yellow bands on the abdomen are distinctly broader than the black ones. So, same genus, different species.

Harold

e6filmuser

A couple of days ago, I was photographing small species of digger wasps on my Goldenrod.

What looked exactly like a Vespula was flying around the flowers but showed no interest in feeding. It keep flying, feet first at foraging honey bees and hitting them quite hard. At one stage I framed it and I believe I saw the colouration of the antennae as shown in this topic. I didn't get the shot.

I was photographing a medium-sized fly which had settled about 2cm inside the clump of stems. I got the first shot but, as I was framing the second one, there was a blur of black and yellow past my right ear and past the lens. This blur knocked the fly right out of the available DOF and instantly flew off with it.

I saw the wasp carrying the fly for a few seconds but then the latter escaped and flew into the dense clump

This will be related again with the image of the fly which was involved.

Harold

Lord Vetinari

Good captures Harold - would love to witness this event.
Brian v.