Death Mask

No with a title like that you could be forgiven for thinking I was in Westeros or some medieval tale but no, I was in Croome  Park.

A rather macabre scene played out in front of me as I sat on the bank of the lake with all the drama of a movie:  The sun was shining, the dragons were playing, the darters were flitting and mating; the water glistened and all was right with the world. Suddenly out of nowhere a wasp flew in, dived onto the mating darters, there was a kerfuffle in the short grass and I saw the ruddy darter fly off with something and the wasp grapple with something too on the ground. The wasp had chewed off the head of the darter and was proceeding to separate it's wings  and body from the thorax which it did and it took the meal away. The ruddy darter on the other hand didn't know what had hit the unfortunate pair and continued for a good 10 minutes to fly around with her head in his claspers trying to oviposit on the grass. One of 2 incidents at Croome one of which I won't fess up to but worked out alright in the end. :))