We had an unexpected visitor in our office yesterday at Parke in Bovey Tracey – a Common Wasp Vespula vulgaris. It just appeared out of nowhere and started buzzing around the office – I expect our log boiler had produced enough heat to wake her up as she is a queen wasp. Surprising as there were very few wasps around last year.
I caught her in my butterfly net and then put her in this specimen tube
In this picture you can see the distinct black spade like marking on the front of the face which distinguishes his species from other types of wasp
Just before Christmas we had a drone hoverfly in the office Eristalis tenax – this is a photo of the same species which I took outside in July – it is a honeybee mimic
I also heard a report of two red admiral butterflies in our Widecombe Shop over Christmas too – all signs of our mild winter.
Just for the record – I let the wasp go and she flew off towards our Walled Garden.
A Dartmoor blog 