"We've got no wasp summer this year", according to unnamed members of NABU Thuringia. Maybe they still were busy moving all my local natterjack toads to a new spot 20 kilometers away so one of Mercedes' cheap permatemp factories can expand again, which NABU didn't protest at all nor ever mentioned that this endangered toad species is quite common in my sparse region.

NABU members certainly appear to not even know where wasps like Polistes dominula usually can be found during regular, Central European summers. Another, much smaller colony abandoned their idea to build a small nest right on some old burlap bags lying the ground in my yard (they saw some round, red plastic lying on top of those bags and began to build a comb inside the plastic, right next to the sleeping spot of one of my cats).

(NOTE: Kudos to @[email protected] for providing a more accurate identification! I'll no longer rely on the German Wikipedia for anything related to insects or STEM as this isn't the first time a page turns out to be horribly outdated and more misleading than helpful.)

#hymenoptera #insects #wasps #europeanpaperwasp #germany #canoneos700d
@magda The ones on the photo look like Polistes dominula to me 😊
@[email protected] You‘re right, I misidentified this species. The German Wikipedia page for wasps doesn‘t even list the vast mayjority of native wasps (even missing this common one) for some reason and I‘m largely unfamiliar with them myself. Thank you though, it‘ll be corrected in a minute!
@magda happens to be one of my favourite species of wasp, very docile, don’t care about humans, and they make small colonies so don’t become a nuisance 😄
@[email protected] I can confirm that they usually don‘t mind anyone and they even get along quite well with my cats :D Though one individual from the colony depicted above felt a little threatened by my camera and circled around my head until I put it down.