potter wasp

July 19, 2016

Dave Bonta July 19, 2016 1

In the bright sun, three potter wasps are raiding the bergamot blossoms, piercing the base of each purple tube to drain the nectar.

Dave Bonta July 24, 2015

A wasp flying in low sunlight: hind legs dangling bright orange, and behind her thin waist the black, banded abdomen shaped like a bomb.

Dave Bonta July 23, 2012 1

A sleek black-and-yellow potter wasp is visiting the bergamot, biting a hole in the base of each drooping floret to suck the nectar.

December 23, 2023
Silhouetted against the dawn sky, a squirrel forages for birch seeds right where Venus was last seen, glimmering through thin clouds.
December 23, 2022
Back after a 10-day absence, I watch a front move in: blowing curtains of white. It’s as if winter had been waiting for me. Juncos…
December 23, 2021
Overcast and cold. A chickadee foraging at the woods’ edge sings his fee-bee song. A sudden scrabbling of squirrel claws on locust bark.
December 23, 2020
Out before sunrise, I watch the sky on the weather app switch from black to blue in less than a heartbeat. Then the slow blood-reddening…
December 23, 2018
Another cold, dark morning. At the woods’ edge, a sharp-shinned hawk stands still with its freshly killed prey, as if catching its breath.