Yes, there does appear to be a greater number of wasps (yellow jackets) around this year than in past years. They are easily identifiable by their bright yellow and black striped abdomen.
Here is a picture from the Royal Alberta Museum bug room.
Having received a sting on the lip this summer, I can assure you that it
will hurt. For most people who don't have an immediate serious reaction, a rapid application of ice to the sting site should take down swelling and pain.
When children get stung - as my fifteen month old did last night -
do not apply ice directly to fingertips or toes. Hold a cool, moist cloth on the sting site or put a toy in the bottom of a bowl of cool water and encourage the child to play with it. Ice on infant and toddler fingertips and toes can quickly lead to frostbite.
If you plan on being outside and want to limit your exposure to these insects, the best thing you can do is try to lure them away from you. My wasp lure is a mixture of stale beer, fruit punch and flat soda pop. Mix about a cup's worth and pour it into an empty 4 litre milk jug. Place the jug away from you. The wasps, attracted to the sweet mix, fly in and then due to the smooth walls and narrow top, cannot escape. Last weekend we counted 12 dead wasps in the jug in under two hours. I should point out that while they are annoying, yellow jackets do fill an ecological niche by scavenging dead insects and preying on other insects that people consider to be pests. Yes, even the nasty yellow jacket has a benefit to you. For this reason I'd strongly encourage you to use these lures on a limited basis and only when you are eating and drinking in problem areas.
Another interesting idea is to inflate a lunch-sized, paper bag and seal the top with string. Hang it
near you. Supposedly it resembles a nest well enough that the yellow jackets leave it alone.
I have not tried this and cannot attest to its effectiveness. If you want to try it out, drop us a line and let us know how it worked.
Not the greatest picture since I was using the zoom, but I saw this White-Breasted Nuthatch on a spruce tree on the Wishart Trail last Wednesday. It was obviously trying to pretend I didn't see it if it didn't move.
Those of you who've walked the Dr. George trail at all this summer may have noticed that a few of the spruce trees appear to be dead or have dying limbs like the tree on the left (as always, click on the photo to make it larger). This is one of the few visible reminders of our prescribed burn in the grassland this spring.
I'll leave you with a look at a Grass Spider (Agelena naevia... or Agelenopsis, depending on the source you check) I saw in the Sanctuary the other day. Grass Spiders are funnel web weavers. They make trampoline-like webs that end with a funnel-shaped opening. The spider waits in the funnel's hole, and when it feels the vibration of an insect on the web it races up and grabs it. As the name implies, Grass Spiders are usually found in grassy fields but can also be seen in hedges and other vegetation occasionally.
Low Bush-Cranberry (Viburnum edule), pictured here, and to a lesser extent its cousin High Bush-Cranberry (Viburnum opulus) (below) have a sneaky way of spreading their seeds. As the berries ripen they give off a scent resembling old meat. This attracts scavenging animals, which eat the smelly berries. Sounds weird so far, but it makes sense when you know that the seed inside each berry is tough enough to make it through an animal's digestive system without being destroyed. By the time the seed finally hits the ground it's likely been spread far from the parent plant, and as a bonus it's been planted in a bit of... fertilizer for good measure.
Bush-cranberries, whose berries are edible (if acidic) and make a pretty good preserve, can be identified by their three-lobed leaves (shallow lobes on Low Bush-Cranberry; deeper lobes on High Bush-Cranberry). Low Bush-Cranberry often grows in moist thickets and wetland margins. High Bush-Cranberry can be found bordering poplar stands and in river valleys.
