The Trail Cam Thread

[AVGWarhawk]

A match will complete the job. Have fire extinguisher handy!

[Skybird]

Neal, please forgive, but the tiny little flying UFOS in the video of yours by size do not look like hornets, but wasps, and quite common ordinary wasps. Or is the perspective fooling me? Do i miss something there or is this an especially aggressive problematic American species? A Republican wasp, maybe? If it is just a common wasp, why all the hassle about them, I dont get it?! We have a garden over here, too, I have wasps visiting my loggia every day, sometimes even in the appartement, and every couple of weeks, especially early in the year, a hornet flies by as well and checks for an inviting cave to settle in.

[Jeff-Groves]

Don't know how Wasps react in Germany but let me tell you something many don't know!
Wasps have reactionary responce to a threat. Now what is really crazy?
They can trace that threat back to it's initial source!
Example.......
10 meters away is a Wasp nest, I throw a rock at said nest.
Guess what happens?

The Wasps can trace that rock back to it's initial launch point and send Hostiles!
They have an uncanny ability to trace the trajectory of any inbound threat!

I have been on the receiving end of this counter strike several times!

[Skybird]

They react to movement, colours, smells (chems).

There are over 60 wasp species (vespinae). 15 of that can be met in Germany, of which around one half are seen as peaceful, the other half as more aggressive. I am very certain that there are more than just one or two wasp species in the Americas, too. So: "wasp" is not he same like "wasp".

I find state-bulding insects quite interesting, especially bees, ants, hornets, wasps. Termites i find - well, they do not interest me.
But there are some bees and hornets I would not deal with, at least not without taking extraordinary precautionary measures, namely so called "killer bees". We do not have these in Germany, however. Maybe they will move into Europe, with warming climate, I dont know.

Bees and bumblebees, as I see and meet them in the nature here, are never aggressive, always friendly. Wasps - I have an eye on them, but they are n ot really lustful attackers, but one has to know that they search for food more and more determined with summer passing by.

I also have quite big "giant house spiders" (Winkelspinnen: Eratigena atrica) in my flat, two of them. I tolerate them, becasue they make a real difference over summer regarding the mosquito population at night, the beasts fly aroudn at night, and when I chase them (I HATE mosquitos and have supersensitive acoustic sensors for them), they tend to flee into dark corners. And there are the webs of the spiders. I clean them once per year, after the warm season and autumn, when all mosquitos are already gone anyway. A bit respect for these spiders is due, I think: they can turn 5 years old. Not one bit aggressive, they could bite through human skin, but it would be harmless, and again: they are absolutely avoiding humans, absolutely. Never heard or read that anyone was ever bitten, despite their impressively long fangs.

Curious fact: the sound of a flying mosquito, even at the other end of my flat, can pull me out of a deep sleep in a fraction of a second and catapult me out of bed like a spring, even before I'm really awake: I wake up inlfight. I've already sprained my ankle and banged myself badly on occasions. For a moment, my body actually reacts in a fit of instinctive panic. I find mosquitoes extremely impossible to tolerate, I almost go crazy. When bees or wasps crawl on my arms, our native spiders - no problem. But with mosquitoes, some deep, dark instinct from ancient times immediately takes control. My ears are really hypersensitive to the sound of mosquitoes, I can hear the critters even in the city with car traffic around me, at two, three meters distance, its incredible. I hope it goes away with higher age, when ears become more "deaf". It's terrible, it's not a gift, it's a curse. When I used to travel in the Middle East, I soemtimes almost freaked out. Some switch in my head flips over. Only dead mosquitoes are tolerable mosquitoes. Must sound funny in your ears, but it isn't, its really a problem at times.



A Japanese "murder hornet" (giant hornet) queen on the hand of a Buddhist monk. Not as bad as a mosquito on my leather glove.


And this is an ordinary drone of the Japanese Giant Hornet.

[August]

Yep yellow jackets. Might need to take off and nuke them from orbit Neal!



Last month on a trip up to Maine I found a nest of them in the log chinking at the cabin. I waited for dark then put in two entire cans of hornet killer and then sealed up the holes with mouse retardant construction foam. Hope that got the buggers but I won't know for sure until I go back up there to mow the lawn in a couple of weeks.

[mapuc]

Then we have the Africanized bee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Neal, please forgive, but the tiny little flying UFOS in the video of yours by size do not look like hornets, but wasps, and quite common ordinary wasps. Or is the perspective fooling me? Do i miss something there or is this an especially aggressive problematic American species? A Republican wasp, maybe? If it is just a common wasp, why all the hassle about them, I dont get it?! We have a garden over here, too, I have wasps visiting my loggia every day, sometimes even in the appartement, and every couple of weeks, especially early in the year, a hornet flies by as well and checks for an inviting cave to settle in.

They aren't big, that's for sure. It's hard to explain, until you've been hit, you really don't know. I can tell you yellow jackets or ground hornets hurt really bad when they sting, but that doesn't really convey the intense searing burning oh sshhhh&&&&t pain when you are mowing the grass or opening a door and then without knowing wth is going on, you're dying. And that's part of their magic, they don't blow a trumpet and announce their attack. When I got hit last week, I didn't see or hear them. Like Warhawk said, minding my own business and then instant crippling pain. You would rather get punched in the mouth than get stung 20 times by these things.

And these nests often have 2000-5000 insects in them. They have no business around people.


Just watch how this guy reacts when 1 stings him...gets an instant reaction.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

A match will complete the job. Have fire extinguisher handy!

Originally Posted by August

Yep yellow jackets. Might need to take off and nuke them from orbit Neal!

I'll go with your advice. Last night, the entrance hole was about 1 1/2 inches, I was pretty confident that my stream of gasoline would prevent any wasps from exiting the hole and swarming me.

This second hole was 6-8", hell, they weren't even all in, there were about 20 or so sleeping on the flower stems. Outside the hole.

ha! I dumped the gas out of a bucket and lit it up.

[AVGWarhawk]

Gotta do what you gotta do.

[AVGWarhawk]

Other backyard critters.

[AVGWarhawk]

Night time bandit.

[Jimbuna]

Wasps have taken over a solar powered bird bath fountain at the rear of my property but that doesn't deter the birds from bathing and drinking so I'll leave them alone in the hope they'll be gone when summer ends.

[AVGWarhawk]

New critter on the cam

[AVGWarhawk]

Racoons(trash pandas)

[AVGWarhawk]