” Do you want to get some shots of a wasp nest?” I was at a loss for words when a fellow photographer excitedly posed that question to me this past weekend. I had visions of an enormous cluster of very large and angry insects and I hesitated for a long moment before finally agreeing.
What had I gotten myself into? It turns out that my fears were greatly exaggerated and the nest was a very modest one, not much bigger than the wasps themselves. My fellow photographer had been told that they are paper wasps and it looks to me like they may be brown paper wasps, judging from some of the photos that I have seen on-line.
I am hoping that the nest doesn’t get too big, because it is near a path that I regularly use. There were not a lot of wasps present yet, but they looked pretty fierce and I kept my distance and used my telephoto zoom at the far end of its range.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
Wow, incredibly gorgeous shot!
Anything that looks that good is worth going in for a closer look.
Some nests can get huge, but it doesn’t matter. Just one sting from them is enough.