Well it appears I've done it again, I get confused when I have a series of photos I would like you to look at in a certain order, and even if you chose to skip through at least it would be going in the right direction..lol
Rather than delete them and start again (and possibly just do the same thing again..[its happened]) I have decided to just put up an article about them.

This is a Wasp of the of the Crabronidae order, of the family Oxybelus. Its species name is Oxybelus uniglumis (which by the way my other half thought very fun to keep repeating to me today, it does roll off the tongue for Latin, Try it!).

Its the most common of these species in Britain according to BWARS (Bees, Wasps, Ants Recording Society) and is a solitary wasp. It hunts small flies often snatching them in mid air, where it delivers two stings, the first behind the front legs and the second I would imagine anywhere that makes carrying it in flight easier.

We sat watching these tiny wasps (maybe 10mm long) for over an hour and it was really interesting to see, at first we had no idea what we were looking at and that the really 'long ones' actually had flies they were carrying. It took even longer to figure out that they had them impaled onto their stingers to carry them.

So here is the series how it should be of one of the females opening her nest and going in with the fly, they will catch upto 14-16 flies,deposit them into the nest then arrange them nicely (don't ask me how someone learned that part) then deposit an egg into each one. She will then go either to another nest she has dug or start digging another one.

They prefer sandy, dry, only slightly sloped or flat surface to nest in.






It amazed me how they find their own nest, as there must have been upwards of 100 of these females going back an forth and various times.

Here you can just see the sand she is thrusting out ward and still keeps hold of her prey, what a woman!!


She has boulders to move comparatively.




She finally finds the entrance, remember this is in a footpath, used quite a lot, and people and dogs kept coming by, and I'm sure moving and burying her entrance, let alone that they cover them before they leave it.






And this is all she wrote, shes down in the nest now, maybe nicely arranging dead flies or laying eggs..lol

This process took a few mintues, I'm sure aided by the fact that her nest was more covered than she left it, we kept trying to get a series of photos but most of them took only a few seconds to dig in and be down the hole!

So maybe I might be the only 'nut-bob' (I say this proudly and with love, I think Nut-bobs are the best kinda people) that finds this so interesting, I love the beauty of nature but if I'm honest with myself the behaviour of it keeps me wanting more. I hope you will enjoy it a bit :)

And please please if you've read this far....the next time you think you're having a bad day watch a bit of the struggles of nature, it makes you feel much better knowing that your house will not be stepped on by a gigantic dog :D