Friday, September 10, 2010

Bald-faced hornets interactions



The bald-faced hornets quite often drink peacefully together, and then, for no reason discernible to me, engage in fierce-looking tumbling fights that sometimes end up with the combatants literally ‘in the drink’.


Bald-faced hornets

I’ve become fascinated with bald-faced hornets—big black-and-white hornets which look fearsome but are not aggressive unless their nest is threatened. I put out a feeder for them to keep them away from my hummingbird feeders as the hornets drive the hummingbirds away, even though the hummers are much larger. This is a sterile worker female in flight.

Pond and fauna

This is a photo I entered in the Monday Magzine photo contest in the category '10'.