Wasp Day
Immobile on a flower in the middle of the day, unusual for a hungry wasp. Still there when I got back with camera.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again
Then without any notice she took off, I couldn’t follow with old eyes. Just as well we were going to the same place.
Where I work in the garden. The table with pot plants on it, and trays with water in them. So she could drink her fill.
So quiet she was I thought I’d try some background, a leaf from the nearby passion fruit vine, carefully placed.
And she didn’t mind being moved, we had an understanding, no unnecessary activity. But she wasn’t leaving.
Just a few shots for the record, my record. The green allows some detail in the shadows, contrast is necessary …
… a world of difference. After a while I gave her my warm finger and she climbed on without pause, the cool wind.
No sign of her stinger, so relax … She snuggled up, close as she could. What else to do on a cold windy day.
To soak up the warmth of it I suspect, and was very patient with me. She wasn’t interested in the butterfly bush.
She prefers meat, I think. Nectar at another time maybe. First things first tho, warmth for the rest of the body being.
She had adopted me, as a source of life and nourishment, warmth. And wasn’t going to let me go easy, so it seemed.
We are more dangerous to them than they are to us, though people don’t realise it from inside their emotions.
Spring is in and the days fluctuate between warm and cool. There’s little rain and much wind but the garden gets watered anyway. Changeable … It’s a lovely time of year.
She landed on the nasturtium in the middle of the day and I had to wonder, why so still … She was probably born on a warm day, and this one was cool.
Often a small creature takes its energy from the heat of the sun, amongst other things. Looks like this one was caught in the shade a while.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
Beautiful little creature.
http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_apoidwasps/VaseCellMudDauber.htm
Indeed … Thanks for the link Lissa.
She seems so delicate. Seems there that you captured a tender moment, a connection of sorts, between you and the wasp.
She is, but also robust, able to withstand much before succumbing to environmental pressures – such as heat and cold, thirst and hunger, etc.
A connection for sure, we both exist in a proximity of position in sense – neither of us away in an intellectual or emotional world, or separated much by space or time. And the purer that sense is realised the stronger the connection. There’s a simple way to do it …
Thanks Zee.
Amazing sequence, Mark. You are right, I am much more afraid of her but she is much more at risk. Your photographs are incredible in detail, color and composition. You have a great relationship with your subject. :)
It seems uncanny but I find the more at ease I am, in the senses, doing what I’m doing, the more nature comes to me this way. Ease is where there is no consideration of any fear, for instance – no complicated ‘relationship’. And so, as the wasp is also in ‘sense’ we are one. In a sense, of being. The differentiated senses arise from or in the sense of being.
In this case she is more in a sense of warmth, on my finger. And I am in the sense of seeing and feeling – the same ‘sphere’ of sense, with some ‘second nature’ camera work thrown in.
Thanks Jane.
Very interesting, Mark. Your comfort with nature opens the door for these experiences. It shows in your work.
Relaxation is the key.
Nothing’s certain though, what may be.
Stunning photos, as always, Mark. And I have to say, there are few people on this planet who would even think of sharing their body heat with an insect like you’ve done here. I say bravo to you. :)
In the end Kim it’s either love or pain – one being a state of ‘no problem’, and the other anything that (fundamentally) disturbs that state.
No contest, when you’ve had enough of pain. :-)