Monday 2 January 2012

Waspish!


It's a Bank Holiday here in the UK because New Years Day, a Bank Holiday fell on a Sunday - so an extra day off. Indeed, looking out of the window this morning, it's a glorious sunny day with just a hint of breeze. Gale force winds and heavy rain tomorrow - joy!

I've been keeping my compost heap going with vegetable peelings from the kitchen and that goes towards making a solid start to get the heap going again when the weather starts to get slightly warmer. Imagine my surprise the other day when I put some peelings in the heap to discover several wasps just sitting there among the peelings, not moving. This is the first time in the many years I've had a heap that I've noticed this.

In fact wasps hibernating was not something I had ever considered before but according to the research I've done that's exactly what some of them do. What's more there are over 100,000 species of wasp. Now I hate wasps. I make no secret of the fact and indeed would admit that I run a mile when one is about. I don't mind bees at all, but wasps - no thanks.  I always used to say "What's the point of a wasp?" They are just a blooming nuisance.

Although I've seen this on a few nature programmes over the years, it dawned on me that they do us a small service by laying their eggs inside our insect pests. In turn this kills the pests as the wasp larvae eat their insides or when they emerge. Delightful. So instead of hating wasps 100%, I now only hate them 90%. Nature is wonderful but sometimes can be amazingly nasty.

Its a reading day today - a 'me' day. It's a no chore day, although I have already emptied the dishwasher, made a cup of tea for her indoors who is still in bed (it might prompt her to make me one while I'm in bed now and then); put the rubbish in the recycling bins; fed the fish and fussed the cats. Mind you - I'm half asleep so it might have been fussed the fish and fed the cats.

So have a great day wherever you are - working or resting.

Chat soon
Ta-ra.

8 comments:

  1. I have always thought that the wasps you see in Winter are the queen wasps who hibernate ready to come out and start the new colony in the Spring. We occasionally find one indoors over the winter.

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  2. "fussing" fish ? See, that is why I tell all my blog friends to read your blog, the vocab that can be gleaned is stupendous

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  3. Just so long as you didn't feed the fish to the cats!

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  4. Hi Weaver
    I think you are almost certainly right - there's about three I can see and they are fairly big in size too. I guess the slight heat from the compost is keeping them alive.
    XX

    Hi Donna
    You learn something new here - possibly not right always!
    XX

    Hi MorningAJ
    Well I'm waiting for the cats to go fishing in the big pond which they haven't quite seemed to have worked out yet!
    XX

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  5. Cats and water? Theory is they hate it.

    Not so. Last night was lashing rain, hail and powerful winds, but one of our cats, who is the 'Mad Max' of midget cats, refused to come in. I gave up at 3am :)

    Wheelie weather, a Cornish friend calls it :)

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  6. Hi Wheelie
    My cats are always coming in damp and wet - they love playing in wet grass and rain means nothing much to them.
    X

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  7. RLS, to get a macro shot like that wasp, does it take an expensive camera? I mean over the £300 mark plus the lenses?

    Thinking of, how with a basic modernish basic digital cam, can you explain how to take a shot of the the moon so it doesn't end up as a dot in the photo?

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  8. Do you know - my camera is a Panasonic Lumix I bought as a portable to my Canon 40D which is too heavy to lump around. I can get as close as 1cm in bright condistions, it's extraordinary. Although my model, the TZ65 is no longer available, there is a replacement model and it cost me about £220 three eyars ago. The best specs are cheaper now. Several people have got one after my recommendation and no one has been disappointed.
    X

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