Page 80 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #10

They are expanding in range, and now can “My interest actually
be seen as far north as Northumberland.
I encounter individual hornets reasonably
frequently in and around my own garden in
Oxfordshire, and am always delighted to
get a glimpse of these alluring predators. But
one man has taken things a step further.
Stephen Powles has long had a passion for
hornets, and quite literally has a window into
their secret lives, thanks to a rather special
nestbox that he has made in the converted
barn where he lives in Devon, with a window
facing into his spare bedroom. He had been
hoping to attract blue or great tits, but ended
up hosting a much more interesting species.
Unexpected visitors
Instead of welcoming birds, the nestboxes
have for the last few years been occupied
by hornets – and Stephen is delighted. His
passion for these wasps is inspiring. “My
interest in hornets began when they moved
into one of my barn-owl nestboxes,” he says.
This choice of nest site is not that unusual,
since hornets readily use roof spaces and
outhouses, as well as hollow trees. What is
a little out of the ordinary is that Stephen’s
barn-owl nestbox was built into the gables
of his roof. Up there, the hornet nest was
able to reach impressive dimensions.
80 BBC Wildlife
began when hornets
moved into one of my
barn-owl nestboxes.”
“One summer I climbed into the loft to
check for possible signs of a roosting barn
owl,” Stephen recalls. “I carefully opened the
‘back door’ of the nestbox, only to be greeted
by 200 or 300 irate hornets. I don’t know
who was more surprised – them or me! I
quickly closed the door again, and so began
a 15-year fascination with these insects.”
Since then, Stephen has spent hours
capturing hornet behaviour on film and in
photographs, creating a uniquely detailed
perspective on the life history of, in his
words, “these much-maligned super-wasps”.
In 2016, BBC Wildlife writer Mike Dilger
even paid a visit, with film crew in tow (their
remarkable film is still available to view on
BBC One’s The One Show website).
Hornets are closely related to a number
of other social wasps within a group called
Above: A queen returns
to her nest in a grassy
tussock. The European
hornet Vespa crabro
feeds on insects and
other invertebrates,
supplemented by
sugary sap from trees
and windfall fruit.
Vespinae. Many of these are yellow and black,
whereas hornets are yellow and brown.
Hornets are large wasps, with queens reaching
about 3.5cm in length and workers about 3cm.
They are commonly confused with queens
of the median wasp, but lack the deep black
markings of that species. Additionally, hornets
do not have yellow markings on the thorax,
while the median wasp has distinctive yellow
bands running along its sides and the workers
are, of course, much smaller than hornets.
In recent years, the Asian hornet has
also been much in the news in this country,
though as ever with non-native species, some
of the reporting has been sensationalist.
Slightly smaller than the European hornet,
this species has yellow ends to its legs, unlike
the all-brown legs of its relative. Its head is
dark from above but orange in front, while
October 2018