Wasp Watching: The Great Golden Digger Wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus)

Wasp watching can yield some of the best wildlife encounters! One such was with this very plucky female Great Golden Digger Wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus) from West Monroe, Louisiana, featured in this short wildlife documentary. This is a short wildlife documentary film (under 14 minutes) filmed by Kimmie and Charles Paxton in UHD and highspeed 130 fps HD set to some very groovy music 'See you on the other side' from the 126ers made available courtesy of Google's awesome YouTube Audio Library.

A very characterful, busy little creature, just over an inch long, with purplish glossy, transparent wings folded neatly over an orange-brown abdomen with black tip. Her golden head and neck fuzz, collar and shoulder trimmings and her energetic earth workings give her her English name, these along with her large shiny compound eyes won our affection instantly.

The Sphex was so sweet and perky. Her moves so crisp and deliberate! She scooted up and down a little sandy run and then disappeared neatly down her burrow, only to emerge again backwards after a short while with a clump of sand between her curved orange fore-legs. This sand was then flung very quickly underneath her between her legs and then back she'd go for more. On  occasion she would spend a little extra time above ground splaying out her legs to spread the sand. This gives the rather amusing appearance of her 'revving up' to go back down her hole. At first I didn't even see the sand being spread, she was so fast, I just saw her revving up and down her little track, constantly feeling the ground ahead of her alternately with each feathery antenna and occasionally flapping her wings a little!

We immediately returned with our Lumix cameras and set to filming her endeavours in UHD at 30 FPS and in high speed HD (130 fps) mounted on tripods and lain on the ground and upon a rice bag. She was very tolerant of our presence and so preoccupied with the task of excavating her nest burrow that we were entirely free to get down low and get in close! The tiny quartz crystals looked a little like precious stones when enlarged in close-up. She looks great in the 4K video and her moves are so fast that they were blurring at 30 fps.  She even allowed the tripod to be set directly over her hole! The Sphex are non-aggressive. Don't try such liberties with the eusocial wasps (like Red Wasps) as they are not as sweet-natured as the solitary wasps and unlike this lovely, tolerant Sphex.

Read more about the making of this film at https://wildopeneye.wordpress.com/202...

Kimmie and Charles are members of the Louisiana Master Naturalists Northeast chapter and are seeking to document cool wildlife encounters during lock-down due to COVID-19. Stay safe and well, wear masks and maintain six foot distance and hopefully we'll see you on the other side of this pandemic, folks! Thank you 126ers! Your music works very well with this film I think!