As autumn proceeds, insect life gets more scarce along Piney Woods Church Road. Lately, I have been craving an encounter with some sort of creature making its rounds along the road. This afternoon, I encountered two: a wasp and a grasshopper (the latter the topic of another post).
I found this bright yellow wasp buzzing along near the ground, moving into and out of the leaf litter. It rested for a moment on a a leaf, but took off quickly when I pointed the camera its way. I waited again for it to make landfall, only for the same thing to happen again. On maybe the fourth try, she perched on a Hoary Mountainmint leaf and stayed put, occupied with grooming her antennae. I took quite a few photographs, most of which ended up a bit blurry. This one did not. According to the BugGuide experts, she is most likely the Ichneumon wasp, Neotheronia septentrionalis.
