Ornate Tailed Digger Wasp

I've been sadly missing from Blipfoto for much of this summer - life has just been super busy. I've just spent the last couple of weeks doing grassland surveys on Coll and Tiree, a wonderful but tiring experience, especially as I managed to trip rather spectacularly over a grass tussock on a tarmac road and injure my knee quite badly. The camera went flying too, but it seems to be made of sterner stuff than me and survived unharmed.

I'm now gradually returning to normal life and hope to resume my blipping habit, though I probably won't manage to post every day. I have photos for most of my absent period, so will upload those as and when time's available. I do enjoy looking back on past years posts, so it would be a shame to have such a big gap. The accompanying text may be quite brief though!

Today's post is an Ornate Tailed Digger Wasp, a species that arrived in our garden last year and which was very absorbed foraging on this ornamental geranium today. This is one of the two common species of Cerceris, but generally has a south-easterly distribution and usually nests in places with sandy soils, though it may use chalk or clay - it's often found on brownfield sites. 

Females of this species frequently nest in quite dense aggregations, usually on level, exposed compacted soil. The nest consists of a deep (10-15 cm) burrow, from which short lateral burrows branch off and terminate in single cells. The upper section of the main burrow is more or less vertical, but the lower part may run horizontally. They then catch and paralyse small bees which they put in their nest for the babies.