| In this statement: > The difference with wasps is that their threshold for attacking me is basically me standing still and doing nothing. you give yourself the lie in this statement: > I have compassion for wasps as living beings. Late last fall I relocated a wasp nest, myself, by hand and with no more protective gear than a pair of thin gloves, into my kitchen, where I looked after them over the course of about a week until the unseasonable early chill broke and we had a day warm enough for them to disperse and find hibernation sites. This spring, four foundresses began nests on my house, three on the front porch and one on the power junction box around back. One of them was quite literally right outside my front door, directly above the porch light. That nest isn't there any longer, I think because of sparrows, but while it was here I walked past it most often while its foundress was present and looking me square in the face, most days at least twice: once going out to sit on the porch and read, and again going back inside. I regret that the birds turned out cleverer, if no less vicious, than I gave them credit for; her first daughters were nearly grown, and I was looking very much forward to meeting them. This winter I mean to mount purpose-designed nest boxes with anti-pigeon spikes and whatever other such structural defenses I can devise, in hopes that next spring's foundresses will find in them a safer place to make a home where I'll again have the chance to enjoy their company. Last year, too, I photographed a European hornet half drunk on rotting fig, with flash, from a distance of about twelve inches. I do that sort of thing as often as I can find the chance, usually from about that close if not closer. The year before that, I climbed into the middle of the same fig tree hunting bindweed before I noticed the hundred or so bald-faced yellowjackets feasting on rotting fruit, and getting likewise intoxicated. Earlier in the year, again before realizing they were there, I had my head within a foot of a nest that bald-faced yellowjackets had built under the eave of my side porch. The last time a wasp stung me was around 2010. My fault; she'd been blown in the car window and landed in my lap, and I put my hand on her without having realized she was there. Since then, despite taking so close an interest in their lives as I've just been at pains to describe, no wasp has yet stung me for it. No wasp has yet even tried. I'm not really trying to change your mind here, because I am familiar enough with rationalizations such as yours to know how well that never works. But if nothing else, I suppose at least you'll never again be able to say you haven't been told. |