Thread-waisted wasp The dragonfly and damselfly world is definitely on the wane, and as the odonates begin to disappear into thin air—well, actually, they mate and lay eggs to start the generation that will fly next spring, and then they pass on—other insects have become prominent on my walks. The chilly, damp mornings are now filled with the buzzing of various kinds of wasps and bees. One of them, the White-faced Hornet, can be aggressive, but the rest of them are relatively benign—and quite fascinating. There are hundreds of different species in the local area, and I can't claim to be able to identify more than a handful. Given that I take my own ignorance in natural history matters as a challenge, I should be kept quite busy learning the vespids. This one, a rather handsome creature with a white face and a couple of white spots on its thorax, is a member of a group collectively known as thread-waisted wasps, a term that describes the slender connection between the abdomen and the rest of the insect. This would make it a member of the wasp family Sphecidae, but beyond that I can't yet go. Clearly, I need professional help here.