We had a rather violent storm (or rather convergence of four storms) here on Monday afternoon that dumped a good amount of much needed rain. The bottom floor of the hospital where I work flooded, we nearly lost power to the building and a couple of people in the community were even struck by lightning.
Working late, it was night time when I was finally able to drive home but fortunately well and truly after the storm had passed. It wasn't until the next morning that I could survey the damage. Surprisingly there were only a couple of branches down around the place at home. We'd had a few storms the week before that must have cleaned off the dead ones from the gumtrees already.
There was; however, a strange grey hump shape sitting on the lawn. It wasn't moving so it was either dead or inanimate. Inching closer I could finally tell it was the nest that had been suspended from the underside of a gumtree branch. I had hoped it was wild bees but looking at this it's more like a huge wasp nest. The ants have been having fun exploring it since it made its landing.
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| The mothership has crashlanded |
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| Close up of the comb |
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| Someone's secret stash of pancakes - saving them for a rainy day |
My God. Those photos are truly amazing.
ReplyDeleteYou must have needed to move it, that would have been tricky!
It might seem a little bigger than it really is Jeni :D. Still had to check it wasn't inhabited first though - although the ants would have soon sorted that out. Since then I've noticed a couple more have appeared around the place on the grass and spotted a few more still up in the trees. I was kind of hoping they'd be some sort of native bee hives but I guess I'll have to settle for wasps.
Delete"Someone's left the cake out in the rain"...
ReplyDeleteLucky it wasn't inhabited - that would have been a little bothersome!
Indeed! We have a lot of wasps around it seems. Thankfully they leave me alone most of the time.
DeleteAmazing! It looks huge!!
ReplyDeleteOptical illusion I'm afraid but still rather large for a wasp nest. Certainly glad it wasn't inhabited.
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