An incident encountered 7/02/08
One late afternoon I was briskly walking along, on my way around to the loo located at the back of the building of where I work in Innisfail, Far North Queensland. All of a sudden, the keys I held in my right hand flung out of my grasp. Stunned, in shock and disbelief, I had instantly felt a sharp piercing pain on the side of my little finger. I didn't know what had just stung me but had my suspicions as I looked around in the man-made built area where there were no clues immediately visible. As the pain intensified and knowing I have little immunity to such insect bites, I picked up my keys and rushed off to get some 'Stop Itch' cream from the chemist across the street. This cream I find works miracuously for me, minimizing both pain and swelling.
Afterwards, and still needing 'to go' you know where, I returned to the area cautiously to try and unfathom the mystery. Ah ha, further down the fence line, about 3 meters along from where I was stung, there going unnoticed was a little hive of busy territorial aggressive Paper wasps building their nest discreetly underneath the pole rail of the fence line. I have only ever been bitten once before by one of these kind since my move to Qld and you never forget it.
Pentax K10D
Lens smc Pentax-DA 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL
Shutter Speed 1/125
Aperature F8
ISO Sensitivity 100
7/02/08 - 3:55pm
REDBUBBLE GALLERY 
Those look like the yellow jackets we have here in FL, vicious little things and terrible painful!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting your blog link on FB. I'll enjoy perusing, I love your work!
Carlynne
www.hershbergerhuff.blogspot.com
Eek, I hate paper wasps! I got stung by one as a child below my eye when I was living in East Innisfail and I've been terrified of them since. I'm kind of cruel to them these days - when I see them I have to attack them with fire.
ReplyDeleteYeh yeh ... nasty nasty bites these aggressive wasps have. I react badly if I don't get some sort of cream on straight away.
ReplyDeleteAnd guess what, I found another nest just being started after I had finished this post. I spray them. Fire is good for the really big nests.
Our survival instinct - once bitten, twice shy. Katanya, living on a banana farm now, means you will need to be constantly on guard as, you will no doubt, discover a lot more nasty critters around. We know respectively how to keep our distance, like when I took these photos. The close ups were done in Photoshop haha! as I didn't have my big zoom lens set up on the camera.